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THE       WOMAN 

W 

HO      WAITS 

FRAN 

BY 

CES  DONOVAN 

1 

"VtAim  ct  v6RnAnlf?l 

BOSTON 

RICHARD  G.  BADGER 

THE    GORHAM    PRESS 

Copyright,  1920,  by  Richard  G.  Badger 


All  Rights  Reserved 


Made  in  the  United  States  of  America 


The  Gorham  Press,  Boston,  U.  S.  A. 


^\   A- 
3D  '"l\'^v*) 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

I  The  Woman  Who  Waits     ....  7 

II  My  First  Experience  as  a  Waitress  .  17 

III  LiLLiE 31 

IV  Feeding  the  "Loop  Hounds"    ...  39 
V    Working  Extra 59 

VI    A  Supper  Girl 70 

VII    A  Tea  Room  for  Men 82 

VIII    Home  Hungry  Janet 97 

IX  Where  the  Waitress  Works  .     .     .  107 

X  The  Work  of  the  Waitress    .     .     ,  120 

XI  Where  the  Waitress  Comes  From    .  133 

XII    Harvest  Time 146 

XIII  The  Kosher  Salami 163 

XIV  The  Meadow  Lark 172 

XV  The  Illinois  Waitresses'  Alliance  .  185 

XVI    Tipping 194 

XVII    The  Lure  of  Dress 203 

XVIII    The  Sex  Game 211 

XIX  The  Price  of  Independence    .     .     .  221 


THE  WOMAN  WHO  WAITS 


THE  WOMAN  WHO  WAITS 

CHAPTER  I 

THE  WOMAN  WHO  WAITS 

One  Saturday  morning  between  seven  and 
eight  o'clock  I  took  an  elevated  train  at  the  sta- 
tion of  one  of  our  large  cities  in  the  Middle  West, 
and  rode  down  to  the  city  to  do  some  shopping. 
The  crowds  on  the  train  at  this  early  hour  at- 
tracted me.  The  tide,  which  flows  to  and  fro, 
from  the  circumference  to  the  center  of  the  city, 
was  now  at  flood.  I  was  interested  particularly 
in  the  women.  There  were  great  numbers  of 
them  who  swarmed  into  the  coaches  as  fast  as  the 
gates  could  be  opened  and  shut.  They  were  work- 
ing women,  but  the  privileged  class,  the  aristo- 
crats, the  women  who  labored  in  the  "Loop." 

There  were  women  of  every  physical  type; 
there  was  the  blond  girl  with  the  pearl  earrings 
and  high-topped  laced  boots,  and  the  brunette 
with  a  bewitching  nose  veil;  there  was  the  tall 
slender  girl  in  a  "strictly  tailored  suit,"  and  the 

7 


8  The  Woman  Who  Waits 

short,  fat  girl  in  a  frilly  lace  collar ;  there  was  the 
middle-aged  woman  who,  with  rouge  and  an  ex- 
travagantly short  skirt,  was  making  a  pitiful  at- 
tempt to  cheat  the  years,  and  the  woman  in  rusty 
black,  and  flat  heelless  shoes  who  had  given  up  the 
struggle  for  youth  and  was  boldly  and  admittedly 
old. 

The  first  thing  that  interests  one  woman  in 
another  is  the  success  of  the  other's  efforts  at  per- 
sonal charm.  Most  of  these  women  were  young, 
many  of  them  were  undeniably  pretty,  some  even 
beautiful,  while  one  or  two  of  them,  without  any 
of  the  ordinary  physical  attractiveness,  had  some- 
how acquired  that  elusive  charm  which  we  describe 
as  "interesting." 

There  are  all  sorts  of  people  in  the  ranks  of 
the  working  women  in  Chicago.  After  some  ex- 
perience I  have  got  to  know  them.  There  is  the 
high-salaried  manager  of  a  fashionable  tea  room, 
the  private  secretary  of  a  prominent  lawyer,  the 
office  executive,  the  stenographer,  the  typist,  and 
the  little  filing  clerk;  there  is  the  saleslady,  the 
shop  girl,  and  the  bundle  wrapper;  the  masseuse, 
the  chiropodist,  the  manicurist,  and  the  lady  bar- 
ber; the  boot  and  shoe  worker,  the  garment 
worker,  the  glove  operator,  the  bindery  woman. 
All  are  a  part  of  the  great  army  of  women  work- 
ers that  every  working  day  pours  itself  into  that 


The  Woman  Who  Waits  9 

part  of  Chicago's  downtown  district  known  to 
every  Chicagoan  as  the  "Loop." 

Where  do  they  all  come  from?  What  sort  of 
homes  are  they  living  in?  Have  they  been  born 
in  the  city  or  have  they  drifted  here  later  in  life? 
What  has  determined  their  choice  of  an  occupa- 
tion? Would  it  not  be  Interesting  to  have  some 
definite  information  in  regard  to  some  one  of 
these  vocational  types?  These  were  some  of  the 
questions  that  came  to  my  mind. 

It  is  a  significant  fact  that  statistics  show  that 
the  number  of  girls  in  Chicago  between  the  ages 
of  fourteen  and  twenty-one  greatly  exceeds  the 
number  of  boys.  Every  morning  paper  records 
the  misfortune  of  some  young  girl,  who  has  come 
to  the  city  in  search  of  adventure.  How  many 
thousand  are  there  whose  stories  we  never  learn? 

Why  do  they  come?  Because  life  is  dull  in  the 
small  town  or  on  the  farm  and  because  there  is 
excitement  and  adventure,  In  the  city.  The  lure 
of  the  stage,  of  the  movie,  of  the  shop,  and  of 
the  oflfice  make  of  It  the  definite  El  Dorado  of  the 
woman.  It  is  her  frontier  and  In  It  she  is  the 
pioneer. 

A  few  years  ago  the  United  States  Department 
of  Agriculture  sent  out  letters  to  thousands  of 
women  who  were  living  on  farms  inviting  them  to 
tell  what  was  wrong  with  the  rural  life  of  women. 


10  The  Woman  Who  Waits 

They  were  flooded  with  answers.  These  letters 
gave  many  reasons  why  farm  life  had  lost  its  hold 
upon  the  farmer's  wife,  but  back  of  all  was  the 
complaint  that  life  was  hard  and  dull.  Is  it  not 
possible  that  many  a  woman  on  the  farm  has  di- 
rectly or  indirectly,  intentionally  or  unintention- 
ally, encouraged  her  daughter  to  seek  her  fortune 
in  a  different  and  a  brighter  way? 

Another  source  of  supply  lies  in  the  second  gen- 
eration of  the  stockyards  and  factory  workers. 
They,  like  the  daughters  of  the  farm,  are  encour- 
aged by  their  mothers  to  seek  an  easier  and  more 
attractive  method  of  earning  a  livelihood.  And, 
because  they  cannot  take  with  them  into  this  new 
life,  the  old  world  background  of  custom  and  tra- 
dition that  belongs  to  their  parents,  they  are 
even  more  poorly  prepared  than  are  the  daugh- 
ters of  the  American  farm  for  the  transition  from 
the  old  to  the  new  life.  Consequently,  in  enter- 
ing upon  these  new  contacts,  the  dangers  and  losses 
incurred  by  them  will  be  even  greater  than  those 
which  will  come  to  the  woman  who  is  in  some 
measure  prepared  by  her  American  standards  of 
living. 

It  is  comparatively  easy  for  these  girls  to  find 
employment  in  the  great  city  and  it  is  from  them 
that  a  great  part  of  this  vast  industrial  army  that 
empties  itself  into  the  streets  daily  is  recruited. 
The  employer  in  the  Loop  can  utilize  this  cheap 


The  Woman  Who  Waits  II 

labor  most  effectively  in  his  well-organized  ma- 
chine. 

"Carson  Pirie,  Scott  and  Company  and  Man- 
del  Brothers!"  the  conductor  had  sung  out  as  the 
L  slowed  down  at  the  Madison  Street  station. 

There  was  a  rush  and  scramble.  The  crowd 
seemed  to  move  bodily  towards  the  door.  I  was 
among  the  rest.  Down  the  stairs  of  the  L  plat- 
form we  rushed  and  were  soon  lost  in  the  vast 
throngs  that  were  hurrying  along  Wabash  Avenue. 
On  Madison  Street  I  stopped  and  looked  5n 
through  the  huge  plate  glass  windows  of  a  res- 
taurant. I  saw  waitresses  in  white  caps  and 
aprons  walking  about. 

"Why  not  find  out  about  the  waitress?"  I 
asked  myself,  and  the  idea  made  a  strong  appeal 
to  me. 

I  walked  on  again.  I  went  into  several  stores 
on  different  errands  and  every  time  I  came  out 
of  a  store  I  saw  a  restaurant  and  through  the 
windows  waitresses  moving  about  at  their  allot- 
ted tasks.  That  I  saw  so  many  was  not  remark- 
able when  one  knows  that  of  the  two  thousand  or 
more  restaurants  in  Chicago,  approximately  one- 
fifth  are  located  in  the  Loop. 

I  found  myself  saying  again  and  again,  "Why 
not  find  out  about  the  waitress?" 

And  then  suddenly  another  Idea  came  to  me, 
"Why  not  be  a  waitress?" 


ti  The  PFoman  Who  Waits 

But  first  I  wanted  to  know  what  was  already 
known  about  the  waitress.  I  searched  through 
the  Hbraries  but  was  unable  to  find  anything  ex- 
cept one  little  pamphlet  got  out  by  the  Consumers' 
League  of  New  York  City  entitled  "Behind  the 
Scenes  in  a  Restaurant."  This  gave  statistics  of 
wages  and  working  hours  merely,  but  no  real 
information,  no  real  insight  into  the  situation. 

I  inquired  of  the  Bureau  of  Labor  in  Wash- 
ington and  received  the  following  reply: 

"We  have  not  made  any  special  study  relative 
to  the  wages,  hours  of  labor,  or  any  matters  per- 
taining especially  to  the  work  of  the  waitress,  and 
consequently  have  nothing  along  this  line  to  send 
you." 

When  I  decided  to  become  a  waitress,  I  had 
no  idea  of  writing  a  book.  I  did  not  at  this  time 
imagine  that  I  was  going  to  get  anything  out  of 
my  adventures  except  an  experience.  I  thought  I 
might  get  some  material  for  articles  that  might 
be  of  real  Interest  and  I  thought  that  I  could  do 
this  in  a  short  space  of  time.  I  had  no  idea  of 
what  I  should  discover,  I  did  not  Imagine  that 
I  was  entering  a  new  world  and  that  I  should 
return  with  a  knowledge  of  life  new  and  strange 
to  me.  I  had  had  no  particular  desire  to  make 
discoveries.  I  merely  wanted  to  see  what  other 
women,  not  in  my  world,  were  doing.  I  went  on 
and  explored  until  I  felt  that  I  had  gone  a  long 


The  Woman  Who  Waits  13 

way.  Then  I  sat  down  to  try  and  give  an  account 
of  what  I  had  seen. 

When  I  first  started  out  to  write  this  matter, 
I  purposed  to  make  it  simply  a  general  statement, 
such  as  I  had  read,  about  the  conditions  of  life  in 
restaurants  as  I  had  found  them  without  reference 
to  places  where  I  had  worked.  I  concluded  that 
I  would  mal^e  no  real  contribution  to  the  subject 
unless  I  told  the  whole  story  accurately  and  in  de- 
tail. I  decided  that,  though  I  did  not  know  how 
far  my  discoveries  represented  conditions  in  other 
cities  nor  in  other  restaurants  in  Chicago  where  I 
had  not  worked,  I  would  make  my  account  faith- 
ful and  accurate  of  what  I  knew  to  be  true,  my 
object  being  not  so  much  to  give  information  as  to 
present  a  vivid  picture  of  the  life  I  had  known. 

I  worked  for  nine  months  in  the  restaurants  of 
Chicago,  not  continuously  but  steadily,  with  short 
intervals  between  each  job.  These  intervals  I 
employed  in  writing  and  reflection.  I  knew  the 
difficulties  of  seeing  clearly  when  one  looks  on 
from  the  outside  and  I  wished  to  make  my  account 
as  reliable  as  it  was  possible  for  one  to  make  it 
who  has  set  out  to  interpret  a  situation  entirely 
foreign  to  one's  previous  understanding  of  life. 

I  made  many  friends  in  the  waitress  group,  so 
many  in  fact  that  I  feel  a  certain  sense  of  dis- 
loyalty in  writing  down  these  intimate  stories 
of  their  lives.     A  good  many  portraits  will  un- 


14  The  ffoman  Jflio  ff'aits 

doubtedly  be  recognized  but  what  I  have  said  will 
be  no  news  to  the  originals  and  the  outside  world 
will  never  know  the  persons  involved.  This  reflec- 
tion relieves  my  conscience  somewhat,  though  not 
entirely. 

What  makes  the  ston,-  of  the  waitress  impor- 
tant, aside  from  its  human  interest,  is  the  fact 
that  these  women  represent  the  advance  guard  of 
working  women  who  are  marching  steadily  deeper 
and  deeper  into  the  world  of  economic  competi- 
tion, getting  into  new  and  dangerous  contacts. 

The  movement  of  women  out  of  the  home  into 
the  world  began  long  ago.  Since  the  war  they 
have  gone  forward  into  the  shop,  the  factory,  and 
the  office  at  a  more  rapid  pace  than  ever  before. 
There  is  now  no  talk  of  "back  to  the  home.''  The 
war  has  made  conclusive  a  revolution  that  had  al- 
ready begun.  Naturally  a  change  so  vast  and  so 
far-reaching  as  that  which  is  now  going  on  can- 
not be  ettected  without  some  losses.  If  women  arc 
destroyed  or  injured  in  this  new  life,  there  will 
be  a  loss  to  working  women  generally. 

The  occupation  of  the  waitress  will  have  to  be 
classed  for  some  time  to  come  among  the  danger- 
ous trades  and  the  dangers  are  not  such  as  might 
occur  to  men.  Tliey  should  be  considered,  how- 
ever, in  the  same  practical  way  because  women  are 
particularly  well  fitted  for  this  work  if  the  proper 
conditions  are  created.     Losses  which  the  women 


The  Woman  Who  Waits  15 

of  today  are  incurring,  if  understood,  will  serve 
to  change  conditions  so  that  other  women  coming 
after  may  be  safe. 

The  question  is  not  economic  as  I  shall  show 
in  the  following  pages  and  it  is  not  one  of  over- 
work. I  have  been  a  teacher,  a  housewife,  an 
office  executive,  and  a  waitress,  and  I  have  not 
found  the  last  named  occupation  any  more  difficult 
than  the  other  three.  Every  occupation,  if  en- 
tered into  seriously  and  because  of  necessity, 
brings  with  it  its  quota  of  routine  and  drudgery 
and,  while  I  was  more  tired  physically  as  a  wait- 
ress, I  found  this  occupation  more  healthful  than 
teaching  or  office  work.  I  found  also  that  I 
could  earn  as  much  money  as,  or  more  than,  I  had 
earned  when  I  first  started  out  to  be  a  teacher. 

Personally  I  found  this  experience  interesting. 
Trying  as  it  was  and  disagreeable  as  it  was,  I 
have  come  out  of  it  with  wider  sympathies  for  all 
persons  concerned,  sympathies  not  only  for  the 
girls  and  for  the  men  who  conduct  restaurants, 
but  even  for  the  patrons.  The  question  is  not 
one  of  persons  but  of  institutions.  These  condi- 
tions have  grown  up  naturally  and  inevitably  out 
of  the  existing  situation.  If  anybody  Is  respon- 
sible it  is  society,  and  society  ought  to  Intervene  to 
improve  conditions. 

A  great  deal  of  what  I  have  written  will  seem 
shocking  to  many  readers.    The  experiences  were, 


1 6  The  Woman  Who  Waits 

in  fact,  shocking  to  me.  It  is  probable,  however, 
that  any  intimate  and  realistic  picture  of  life 
would  be  shocking  to  some  one.  I  once  heard  a 
wise  man  say  that  there  are  many  things  shock- 
ing in  human  nature  but  only  shocking  because  not 
understood.  That  we  do  not  understand  a  situa- 
tion in  which  we  find  ourselves  is  the  reason  we 
are  shocked. 

This  book  is,  then,  an  intimate,  personal,  and 
realistic  account  of  the  life  of  a  waitress  in  Chi- 
cago restaurants.  If  it  has  any  value  at  all  it  is 
because  it  gives  a  truthful,  sober,  and  exact  state- 
ment of  what  conditions  of  life  are  for  the  woman 
who  works  in  a  restaurant  and  of  what  her  in- 
terests and  ideals  of  life  are.  It  has  no  other 
purpose  than  that  of  making  a  certain  situation 
intelligible. 


CHAPTER  II 

MY  FIRST  EXPERIENCE  AS  A  WAITRESS 

I  STUDIED  the  "Female  Help  Wanted"  columns 
of  the  great  organ  of  labor  exchange,  the  Chicago 
Daily  News,  and  under  the  one  headed  "Domes- 
tics-South Side,"  I  found  the  addresses  of  several 
restaurants  which  were  in  need  of  waitresses. 
Then,  dressed  in  my  oldest  and  shabbiest  black 
suit,  I  started  out  one  morning  in  search  of  a 
job. 

My  first  address  was  on  West  Van  Buren 
Street.  I  fought  my  way  from  Wabash  Avenue 
through  the  hurrying  soot-stained  crowds,  while 
the  surface  cars  creaked  and  groaned  at  my  side 
and  the  "L"  thundered  furiously  over  my  head, 
drowning  all  other  sound  except  the  shrill  whistle 
of  the  traffic  policeman,  along  narrow  dark  Van 
Buren  Street,  until  I  came  upon  the  number  I 
sought.  It  proved  to  be  a  restaurant  and  as  I 
looked  in  at  the  people  calmly  eating  at  the  little 
white-covered  tables,  I  saw  neat  girls  in  white 
aprons  carrying  food  on  plates  from  the  rear  of 
the  room  towards  these  tables. 

17 


i8  The  Woman  Who  Waits 

I  started  to  enter,  drew  back,  hesitated,  tried 
to  think  clearly,  but  the  din  of  the  street  seemed 
to  interfere.  I  made  another  attempt.  With  my 
heart  beating  so  fast  that  it  nearly  choked  me,  I 
pushed  myself  through  the  swinging  door  and 
walking  up  to  the  man  who  stood  at  the  cigar 
counter,  I  asked: 

"Do  you  need  a  waitress  here?" 

"We  did,"  he  replied,  "but  we  hired  one  yes- 
terday." 

"All  right,"  I  said,  and  escaped  gladly  into  the 
street. 

That  was  all  he  said  and  all  I  said.  My  relief 
was  enormous.  I  felt  that  by  his  refusal  I  was 
absolved  from  the  obligation  to  become  a  waitress. 
After  all,  perhaps  I  did  not  actually  need  to  be 
one.  Perhaps  I  could  go  around  and  ask  people 
about  them.  There  was  something  terrifying 
about  the  idea  of  life  so  totally  new,  so  absolutely 
outside  the  realm  of  my  experience.  But  I  had 
made  this  bargain  with  myself. 

I  was  by  this  time  walking  along  another  street 
that  crossed  Van  Buren.  I  looked  at  my  next  ad- 
dress. There  it  was,  directly  opposite  me.  I 
crossed  and  entered,  not  quite  so  excited  this  time. 
There  was  a  woman  at  the  cigar  counter. 

"Do  you  need  a  waitress?"  I  asked. 

"Yes,"  said  she,  "see  the  manager  in  the  back 
down  there  by  the  kitchen." 


My  First  Experience  as  a  Waitress       19 

I  walked  toward  the  kitchen.  I  met  a  nice- 
looking  young  man  in  a  white  coat  with  the  name 
of  the  restaurant  embroidered  on  it  in  read  leeters. 

"Are  you  the  manager?"  I  asked. 

"Naw,"  said  he,  "in  there,"  and  he  indicated  a 
little  door  in  the  wall. 

I  opened  the  little  door.  There  stood  a  httle 
dark  man  sorting  out  piles  of  aprons  and  coats. 

"Do  you  want  a  waitress?"  I  asked  again. 

"Yes,"  said  he,  looking  me  over,  "where  you 
worked  before?" 

"Nowhere  in  Chicago." 

"Can  you  step  lively?" 

"Don't  1  look  as  though  1  could?" 

"What's  your  size?" 

"Forty." 

"When  do  you  want  to  go  to  work?" 

"Right  now." 

"All  right,  take  these,"  and  he  handed  me  a  pile 
of  white  things.  He  opened  the  door.  "Do  you 
want  to  be  a  dinner  girl  or  a  steady  girl?"  he 
asked. 

"I  think  I  had  better  start  as  a  dinner  girl,"  I 
answered. 

By  this  time  we  were  out  in  the  restaurant. 
"Take  this  girl  downstairs,"  he  said  to  one  of 
the  boys  in  a  white  coat,  "and  tell  them  to  show 
her  how  to  rig  up." 

I   followed  the  boy  down   a   narrow  passage 


20  The  Woman  Who  Waits 

and  a  narrow  stairway  into  a  damp,  musty-smell- 
ing basement.  At  one  end  of  it  was  a  little  room 
lined  with  lockers. 

"Show  this  girl  how  to  get  into  her  duds," 
yelled  the  boy,  and  departed. 

There  were  about  ten  girls  in  the  little  base- 
ment room.  They  were  putting  on  their  aprons, 
combing  their  hair,  powdering  their  noses,  apply- 
ing lip  stick  to  their  lips  and  rouge  to  their  cheeks, 
all  the  while  tossing  back  and  forth  to  each  other, 
apparently  in  a  spirit  of  good-natured  comrade- 
ship, the  most  vile  epithets  that  I  had  ever  heard 
emerge  from  the  lips  of  a  human  being,  and 
mingled  with  these  were  long  oaths  of  obscene 
profanity. 

I  felt  dizzy,  stunned,  as  though  I  were  just 
coming  out  of  the  effects  of  an  anaesthetic  and 
things  were  not  real  to  me.  I  was  frightened,  too. 
The  musty-smelling  little  room  seemed  to  take 
on  an  air  of  evil  and  of  horror  indescribable. 

No  one  paid  any  attention  to  me.  I  attempted 
to  get  into  my  uniform.  Finally  a  plain-looking 
girl,  who  had  said  nothing,  offered  to  pin  my 
collar  and  to  tie  my  sash.  She  said  her  name 
was  Lillie. 

When  I  was  dressed  I  went  upstairs  and  the 
manager  gave  me  a  belt  and  a  punch  and  the 
woman  at  the  cigar  counter  gave  me  a  bunch  of 


My  First  Experience  as  a  tVaitress      2i 

checks  and  told  me  how  to  punch  them.  Then  the 
manager  put  me  behind  a  counter  up  in  front  and 
told  a  blond  girl  to  show  me  what  to  do. 

"Ever  worked  in  a  restaurant  before?"  she 
asked. 

"Not  this  kind." 

"Well,  you  got  a  lot  to  learn,  kiddo,"  said  she, 
and  with  that  word  "kiddo"  she  seemed  to  admit 
me  into  the  fraternal  order  of  restaurant  workers. 

"You  wait  on  them  five  stools,  right  here  in 
front,  see,"  she  instructed,  "first  give  'em  their 
'set-ups,'  that's  a  glass  of  water,  silver  and  a 
napkin.  Then  take  their  order.  And  as  soon  as 
you  bring  'em  their  order,  you  punch  'em  a  ticket. 
Then  if  they  want  more  you  punch  that  after- 
wards." 

A  bleary-eyed  man  was  eating  just  in  front  of 
us  and  he  droned  to  himself  in  a  sing-song  tone, 
"Another  new  girl !  a  new  girl  every  day !  where 
do  they  all  come  from!"  And  turning  to  me,  he 
said,  "You  bet  you  got  a  lot  to  learn,  kiddo,  but 
she's  a  good  little  pal,  a  darn  good  little  pal  she'll 
show  you." 

Just  then  a  man  sat  down  on  an  empty  stool. 
I  gave  him  his  set-up,  and  then  I  said,  "What'll 
you  have?" 

"Ham  on  rye  and  a  cup  of  coffee." 

I  knew  where  the  coffee  was,  but  I  could  not 


±2  The  Woman  Who  Waits 

see  any  "hams  on  rye."  "Where  do  you  get  a 
ham  on  rye?"  I  whispered  to  a  white-coated 
youth. 

."Over  there,"  he  answered,  "yell  for  it,"  and 
then  he  yelled  for  me  "Ham  on  rye!"  to  a  little 
grill  on  one  side  of  the  room. 

"Yell  over  there  for  all  the  sandwiches,  girlie," 
he  said  kindly,  "and  when  they're  ready  that  fel- 
low sets  'em  here  on  the  counter  and  you  pick  'em 
up.     Seel" 

I  began  taking  orders  thick  and  fast.  When 
they  asked  for  sandwiches  and  coffee,  or  a  glass 
of  milk  with  doughnuts  or  pie,  all  of  those  things 
were  just  behind  me  or  I  could  yell  for  them  across 
to  the  little  grill,  but  when  I  got  an  order  for  a 
"Roast  Beef  Special,"  I  did  not  know  what  to  do. 

"Where  do  I  get  a  'Roast  Beef  Special?'"  I 
asked  the  waiter  boy. 

"Down  in  the  foundry,"  he  said. 

"What's  the   foundry?" 

"Aw,  the  kitchen,  kid,  down  there  In  the 
back." 

I  flew  to  the  foundry,  a  narrow  enclosure  at 
one  side  which  was  separated  from  the  main  room 
of  the  restaurant  by  a  railing  piled  high  with 
plates  and  platters  and  side  dishes.  There  stood 
a  dozen  girls  all  yelling  orders  to  three  perspiring 
chefs.  Great  dishes  of  meat,  potatoes,  and  vege- 
tables stood  on  the  steam  table  just  underneath 


My  First  Experience  as  a  Waitress      23 

the  railing.  The  sound  of  fryings  and  sizzlings 
emerged  from  sicillets  on  a  big  range  in  the  back 
of  the  kitchen  and  mingled  in  the  din  made  up  of 
the  clatter  of  the  dishes  and  the  yelling  of  the 
girls. 

"Roast  Beef  Special!"  I  yelled. 

A  chef  picked  up  a  plate,  and  with  a  huge 
spoon  ladled  out  some  mashed  potatoes  and 
plopped  them  down  upon  it,  sprinkled  a  spoonful 
of  spaghetti  beside  them,  and  passed  the  plate  to 
a  big  cross-eyed  chef,  who  with  a  huge  knife  cut 
a  piece  of  beef  from  a  big  roast  and  slid  it  onto 
the  plate. 

"Here  you  are,  dearie,"  he  said,  "charge  him 
thirty  cents." 

A  little  later  a  man  came  in  who  wanted  hot 
milk  toast.  I  went  to  the  foundry  for  it  as  I 
had  been  told  that  was  where  to  go  for  hot 
things. 

"Hot  milk  toast,"  I  screamed. 

"Get  that  in  the  laundry,  girlie,"  said  the  big 
chef  kindly. 

"And  where's  the  laundry?"  I  asked  in  des- 
pair. 

"Up  in  front." 

So  I  went  back  and  yelled  my  orders  across  to 
the  laundry.  Most  of  the  people  that  T  waited  on 
ordered  ten  and  fifteen  cent  meals,  although  occa- 
sionally some  one  went  as  high  as  thirty  cents. 


24  The  Woman  Who  Waits 

At  the  counter  there  came  men  only  and  men  of 
all  kinds.  Some  were  well  dressed  and  quiet  in 
demeanor,  of  sedentary  habits  and  with  small 
purses.  They  ordered  meat  with  coffee  and  pie. 
Once  in  a  while  there  would  come  a  nice-looking 
boy  in  a  fitted  overcoat  and  with  a  generally  well- 
dressed  air.  He  was  sure  to  order  a  cream  puff 
or  chocolate  eclair. 

Once,  when  there  was  a  lull  in  business,  a  big 
bold-looking  girl  came  up  to  me  and  said,  "Do 
you  see  that  man  down  there  with  the  light  hat 
and  the  red  necktie?" 
"Yes." 

"Well,  he  wants  to  talk  to  you.'* 
"What  does  he  want  to  talk  to  me  about?" 
"How  should  I  know?    Go  over  and  find  out." 
The   man  leered   at  me   from   slanting,   half- 
shut  eyes.     I  quickly  decided  that  I  did  not  want 
to  talk  to  him. 

"Oh!"  I  said,  imitating  the  manner  and  the 
accent  of  my  new  companions,  "he  doesn't  want 
to  talk  to  me,"  and  I  went  on  with  my  work. 

I  worked  from  eleven-thirty  in  the  morning 
until  two-thirty  in  the  afternoon.  I  flew  from 
laundry  to  foundry,  from  coffee  urn  to  cream 
spout,  from  setting  up  "set-ups"  to  swabbing  off 
the  counter  and  piling  the  dirty  dishes  in  boxes 
underneath  it.  My  fellow  waiters  and  waitresses 
were  very  considerate  and  helped  me  in  every  way. 


My  First  Experience  as  a  Waitress       25 

They  called  me  "dearie,"  "Girlie,"  "kid,"  and 
"kiddo,"  and  gave  me  whispered  tips  to  save  the 
butter,  bits  of  breads,  etc.  and  to  use  a  dirty  glass 
if  I  couldn't  find  a  clean  one,  but  not  to  let  any- 
one see  me  do  it. 

At  two-thirty  Lillie  came  to  me  and  said,  "Let's 
eat." 

"That's  right,"  I  said,  "it  is  time.  I  almost  for- 
got about  It." 

"Gee!  I  never  forget  to  eat  I"  said  she,  "that's 
the  main  business." 

"Can  we  have  anything  we  want?"  I  asked. 

Lillie  and  the  otKers  laughed  heartily  at  this. 

"Gosh,  no!"  said  she,  "we  can  have  some  meat 
stew,  coffee,  and  pudding  and  that's  all." 

After  we  had  finished  our  lunch,  Lillie  and  I 
went  down  to  the  basement  room  and  put  our  uni- 
forms into  our  lockers.  Then  we  started  home 
together.  When  we  reached  State  Street,  Lillie 
said,  "Where  do  you  want  to  go?" 

"I  think  I'll  go  over  to  Woolworth's,"  I  said. 
I  mentioned  Woolworth's  because  it  occurred  to 
me  that  it  was  a  place  likely  to  be  patronized  by 
waitresses.     But  it  got  no  reaction  from  Lillie. 

"All  right,"  she  said,  indifferently.  "I  live 
down  here  just  a  few  blocks.  Good-bye,  see  you 
tomorrow,"  and  she  walked  on. 

The  next  morning  when  I  opened  the  basement 
door  a  pretty  young  girl  was  sitting  on  a  bench 


26  The  Woman  Who  Waits 

smoking  a  cigarette  and  spitting  eloquently  all 
over  the  place.  The  other  girls  were  grouped 
around  her.  They  were  discussing  their  sweet- 
hearts, and  the  way  they  had  spent  the  previous 
night.  The  pretty  girl,  who  was  about  eighteen, 
said  that  among  her  lovers  there  was  a  street-car 
conductor. 

Another  spoke  up  and  said,  "I  used  to  have  a 
street-car  conductor,  and  I  never  paid  any  fare 
then.  But  I  ain't  got  any  now,  they  all  either  got 
married  or  turned  me  down." 

A  girl  about  forty  years  old  said  that  when 
she  was  out  she  couldn't  take  any  beer  because 
she  was  under  the  doctor's  care  and  then  she  told 
what  was  the  matter  with  her. 

One  of  the  others  said,  "And  is  that  what  you 
got  the  matter  with  you !  Aw,  Hattie,  I  thought 
you  was  decent!" 

A  loud  laugh  greeted  this  remark,  and  a  girl 
said,  "Hattie  ain't  never  pretended  to  be  decent 
as  long  as  I've  known  her,  have  you,  Hattie?" 

"No,"  said  Hattie,  "I  don't  make  no  claims  to 
being  decent." 

I  looked  at  Hattie  closely,  for  I  supposed  that 
people  who  had  such  things  the  matter  with  them 
bore  outward  and  visible  signs,  but  Hattie,  though 
common  looking,  was  rather  attractive,  and  had 
a  smooth,  clean-looking  skin. 

Just  then  a  pretty  dark  girl  pulled  up  her  skirts 


My  First  Experience  as  a  fFaitress       27 

and  showed  us  her  legs  encased  in  white  silk 
stockings  and  adorned  with  yellow  silk  garters. 

"Gee  where'd  you  get  'em?"  cried  all  the  girls 
at  once. 

"Stole  'em  from  my  landlady  to  wear  today," 
replied  the  girl. 

"Say,  she'll  kill  you  if  she  finds  it  out,"  said 
some  one. 

"Tral  la!"  laughed  the  girl,  "she  ain't  a-going 
to  find  it  out." 

They  went  on  with  their  toilets  amid  exclama- 
tions of  profanity,  vile  remarks  and  jibes  at  each 
other,  all  perfectly  good  natured.  They  were  very 
attractive  girls  with  fresh-looking  skins  in  spite 
of  the  rouge  and  the  lip  stick,  and  their  chests  and 
breasts  were  creamy  white.  I  feel  sure  that  it 
would  have  taken  a  specialist  with  the  Wasserman 
test  to  have  detected  anything  wrong  with  them. 
They  seemed  proud  of  their  way  of  living  and 
wished  to  flaunt  it  in  everybody's  face.  They 
appeared  to  be  happy,  too,  not  cast  down  and 
ashamed  of  their  degradation. 

As  we  were  going  up  stairs,  Lillie  put  her  arm 
around  me  and  said,  "Ain't  them  girls  awful?" 
I  could  see  that  she  wished  me  to  believe  that 
she  was  decent.  When  we  got  upstairs  we  joined 
the  other  dinner  girls  who  were  eating  their  break- 
fast at  the  counter  before  going  to  work. 

I  stayed  at  this  place  four  days.     Each  morn- 


28  The  Woman  Who  Waits 

ing  while  I  was  putting  on  my  uniform,  I  listened 
to  the  conversations  of  the  waitresses,  and  each 
morning  I  felt  sick  at  heart.  It  seemed  at  times 
that  I  must  rush  out  anywhere  to  get  away  from 
it,  that  I  could  not  endure  it  for  another  minute. 

But  when  I  was  upstairs  I  forgot  this  side  of  the 
life  in  the  excitement  of  filling  orders  for  the  ever- 
changing  occupants  of  my  stools.  Between  eleven- 
thirty  and  one  the  revolving  doors  were  never 
still.  They  seemed  fairly  to  push  and  shove  the 
vast  throng  into  the  restaurant.  We  could  not 
clear  away  the  debris  quickly  enough  to  make 
room  for  the  newcomer.  We  slammed  the  "set- 
ups" onto  the  counter  and  rushed  madly  after 
orders  while  the  manager  walked  excitedly  up  and 
down  outside  the  counters  and  yelled  wildly  as 
he  snapped  a  napkin  at  us,  "Step  lively,  there! 
step  lively,  girls!"  And  we  stepped  lively  and 
yelled  in  our  turn,  "Through,  please!"  to  the  boy 
who  was  trying  to  remove  the  boxes  of  dirty 
dishes,  and  to  the  little  Polish  girl  who  was  trying 
to  cut  the  pie. 

On  the  fourth  day  about  two  o'clock,  a  man 
sat  down  at  my  counter  who  ordered  bread  and 
butter,  sliced  peaches,  and  black  coffee.  I  brought 
the  order.  Then  the  manager  came  up  and  yelled 
at  me. 

"Bring  him  some  cream  for  his  coffee!" 

"He  doesn't  want  it,"  I  said. 


My  First  Experience  as  a  JVaitress       29 

"Bring  it  anyway,"  he  snarled. 

"What's  the  use;  he  doesn't  want  it?" 

"No,  I  don't  want  it,"  said  the  man,  turning  to 
the  manager. 

After  the  man  had  gone,  the  manager  came  to 
me  and  gave  me  what  he  then  characterized  as 
a  "calling  down."  He  was  very  angry.  In  con- 
clusion, he  said,  "You  do  as  I  tell  you  if  you 
want  to  stay  here." 

And  before  I  knew  it,  I  had  said,  "Fm  not  par- 
ticular about  staying." 

"That's  enough!"  he  yelled,  "Take  your  apron 
off.  You're  fired!  I'll  give  you  your  time.  Go 
get  your  dinner  and  then  gimme  your  duds." 

I  took  off  the  "duds"  and  handed  them  to  him, 
then  walked  out  from  behind  the  counter  and 
down  the  basement  stairs.  Several  of  the  girls 
were  in  the  little  dressing-room. 

"What's  the  matter,  kid?"  asked  one,  "you 
ain't  off  till  two-thirty." 

"I'm  fired,"  I  said. 

"You  are!"  they  cried  in  chorus,  "what'd  he 
fire  you  for?" 

I  told  them. 

"Ain't  that  a  damn  shame  I  Say,  ain't  he  the 
mean  cuss !  He  was  awful  today!"  and  they  were 
all  sympathy  and  kindness. 

"Never  mind,  honey,"  said  one,  "you  ain't  lost 
anything    wheij    you    lost    this    job.     You'll    get 


30  The  Woman  Who  Waits 

another.  Try  over  at  number  20.  They  won't 
ask  you  no  questions." 

The  big  bold  girl  came  up  and  stroked  my  arm. 
"Ain't  that  the  prettiest  waist  she's  got  on,  girls?" 
said  she,  "I  ben  noticin'  it  every  day,  it's  made  so 
cute." 

Another  girl  said,  "Ain't  she  got  the  pretty 
brown  eyes !" 

"Ain't  she!"  repeated  the  big  bold  girl,  and 
turning  to  me  she  added,  "You  better  leave  them 
eyes  behind."     And  then  she  smiled. 

I  felt  certain  that  I  should  weep.  It  was  not 
so  much  sympathy  for  myself  that  moved  me, 
though  it  all  seemed  very  real  to  me,  but  it  was 
the  kindness  and  sweetness  of  these  girls.  Their 
sympathy  for  what  they  believed  to  be  my  misfor- 
tune touched  me  deeply. 

"Good-bye,  girlie,"  they  all  sang  out  as  I  was 
leaving,  "Good  luck  to  you!  You  won't  have  no 
trouble  gettin'  another  job." 

"Thanks,  girls,"  I  said,  "I  hate  to  leave  you. 
I  was  just  beginning  to  get  acquainted,"  and  amid 
a  chorus  of  "Good-bye,  honey,  good-bye,"  I  left 
the  little  basement  room  and  climbed  the  narrow 
stair  way  into  the  restaurant. 

I  stopped  to  say  good-bye  to  Lillie  and  she  gave 
me  her  address.  At  the  desk  the  cashier  paid 
me  for  my  four  days'  work  and  did  not  dock  me 
for  the  half  hour  that  I  had  not  worked  that  day. 


CHAPTER  III 

LILLIE 

The  sign  above  a  doorway  In  the  lodging  house 
area  known  In  Chicago  as  the  "Port  of  homeless 
men"  reads  "Marguerite  Hotel,  Rooms  50c,  75c, 
$1.00  per  day  and  up."  As  I  went  up  a  long, 
narrow  stairway,  I  was  haunted  by  a  vague  Im- 
pression that  something  was  going  to  reach  out 
and  grab  me.  Eventually  I  bumped  into  some- 
thing. Thinking  it  might  be  a  door,  I  knocked. 
As  a  matter  of  fact,  I  pounded  vigorously.  An 
elderly  woman  In  spectacles  and  a  white  apron 
opened  this  door  and  peered  out  inquiringly. 

"Does  Lillle  C live  here?"  I  asked,  and 

added  in  the  same  breath,  "I've  come  to  see 
her." 

Lillie  was  the  dinner  girl  who  had  been  so  kind 
to  me. 

I  stepped  into  a  narrow  hall  heated  by  a  big 
base-burner  stove. 

The  woman  groped  her  way  up  another  flight 
of  stairs.  I  was  interested  In  Lillie,  so  I  looked 
about.     Leading  from  the  hall  were  a  number  of 

-31 


32  The  Woman  Who  Waits 

small,  cheaply  furnished  bed  rooms.  These  were 
but  reasonably  clean. 

Lillle's  restaurant  voice  called  from  above, 
"Come  on  up!     I'm  awful  glad  to  see  you!" 

She  led  the  way  into  a  little  room.  A  decrepit 
double  bed  sagged  in  the  middle  of  the  floor,  a 
dresser  with  its  mirror  half  hidden  by  gay  neck- 
ties, appeared  to  be  sliding  towards  one  window, 
a  rusty  stove  attempted  to  warm  the  dingy  atmos- 
phere, and  a  ragged  strip  of  carpet  tried  to  hide 
the  splinters  in  the  worn  floor. 

"Take  off  your  things,"  urged  LiUie  cordially 
as  she  put  a  lump  of  soft  coal  on  the  fire  that  was 
smoldering  in  the  little  stove  and  poked  it  into  a 
blaze.  Then  she  drew  up  two  chairs  very  close 
to  the  stove  and  we  sat  down  together. 

"Why  didn't  you  come  before?"  she  asked,  "I 
ben  lookin'  for  you  every  day.  I  ben  sick  and  I 
ain't  worked  for  a  week.  I  fell  on  the  ice  and  cut 
my  head,"  and  pushing  back  her  hair  she  showed 
me  a  long  ugly  gash  across  the  top  of  her  head. 

I  have  often  wondered  since  what  really  hap- 
jpened  to  her. 

I  rocked  back  and  forth  in  Lillie's  biggest  rock- 
ing chair  and  she  rocked  back  and  forth  in  her 
smallest  one.  The  fire  crackled  and  snapped  mer- 
rily threatening  to  burst  open  the  little  stove,  the 
surface  cars  rumbled  cheerlessly  below  the  win- 


Lillie  33 

dows,  and  the  smoke  and  fog  of  the  winter  day 
seeped  in  through  the  cracks  and  filled  every  cor- 
ner of  the  little  room. 

"You  know  I'm  married,"  said  Lillie.  "I  had 
half  a  mind  to  tell  you  before,  but  I  was  afraid 
you'd  tell  them  girls  down  to  the  restaurant,  and 
I  didn't  want  them  to  know.  I  don't  have  nothin' 
to  do  with  none  of  'em,  and  I  don't  want  'em  to 
know  my  business." 

"This  is  my  man,"  she  said  as  she  handed  me 
a  photograph. 

It  showed  a  young  working  man  dressed  up  in 
his  Sunday  best  and  Lillie  herself  wearing  a  wide- 
brimmed  hat  adorned  with  artificial  roses  and 
with  a  ribbon  tied  under  her  chin  in  a  huge  bow. 

Lillie's  wages  at  the  restaurant  were  four  dol- 
lars a  week.  * 

"Of  course,  I  couldn't  have  a  place  like  this 
if  I  wan't  married,"  said  she,  and  she  glanced 
around  the  room  with  a  look  that  said,  "Ain't  it 
pretty  nice !  It  is  my  home  and  my  man  gives  It 
to  me." 

"He's  a  printer,"  she  went  on,  "I  have  to  get 
up  every  morning  to  get  his  breakfast  at  five-thirty 
and  he  doesn't  get  home  to  supper  until  seven. 
If  I  didn't  work,  I'd  be  awful  lonesome." 

Lillie  said  that  she  was  an  orphan  and  had  been 
brought  up  by  an  uncle  who  had  kept  a  restaurant. 


34  The  Woman  Who  Waits 

It  was  a  restaurant  with  an  assignation  house 
above  it  called  at  that  time,  Lillie  said,  a  hotel  on 
the  "European  plan." 

"But  he  raised  me  awful  strict,"  said  she. 
"Them's  the  kind  that  is  most  careful  about  their 
women  folks.  I  worked  in  the  kitchen  at  first  and 
after  that  I  took  the  cash  but  he  would  never  let 
me  do  chamber  work  or  wait  on  tables." 

There  was,  however,  an  artist  with  curly  hair 
and  white  hands,  soft  "like  a  lady's,"  Lillie  said, 
who  lived  over  the  restaurant  on  the  European 
plan.  Lillie,  who  was  a  greenhorn,  thought  he 
was  "grand."  One  day,  when  she  was  busy,  but 
not  too  busy,  in  the  back  court,  he  leaned  out  of 
his  window  and  said  "Come  on  up,  Lillie,  I'll  give 
you  an  apple." 

Lillie  ran  as  quick  as  a  flash  up  those  back 
stairs.  "When  I  got  to  his  door  he  was  waitin' 
and  pulled  me  in  and  shut  the  door  tight,"  said 
she. 

Her  uncle  found  her  later  hidden  in  a  closet, 
whereupon  he  grabbed  the  artist  by  the  collar 
and  kicked  him  downstairs.  "I  didn't  have  nothin' 
more  to  do  with  fellers  until  I  was  married,  but 
I  was  married  when  I  was  eighteen.  I  ben  mar- 
ried thirteen  years.  This  is  my  second  husband," 
said  Lillie. 

She  seemed  to  attach  but  little  importance  to 


I 


Lillie  35 

this  tragedy  in  her  life,  but  went  on  telling  me 
enthusiastically  about  her  wedding. 

"I  made  my  wedding  dress  all  myself,"  said 
she.  "It  was  blue  satin  and  I  had  white  kid  slip- 
pers and  white  kid  gloves,  and  a  veil,  and  gee ! 
but  I  was  swell.  My  uncle  had  been  payin'  me 
fifteen  dollars  a  week  and  I  had  money  laid  by. 
We  got  a  little  flat  and  I  bought  all  the  linen  and 
made  it,"  and  Lillie  rocked  comfortably  to  and 
fro  in  her  rocking  chair. 

"You  are  the  first  girl  I've  met  since  I  lived 
in  Chicago  this  time  that  I've  asked  to  come  to 
see  me,"  said  she  later.  Lillie,  like  the  rest  of  us, 
was  a  bit  of  a  snob. 

This  remark  of  hers  recalled  to  my  mind  the 
scene  of  my  first  experience  as  a  waitress.  The 
contrast  of  this  life  in  the  basement  dressing  room 
was  so  immense  that  I  wanted  to  know  more 
about  the  people.      It  encouraged  Lillie  to  gossip. 

"Lord,  no.  Myrtle's  not  a  sport!"  said  she, 
"she's  rich,  she  is,  she  owns  property  and  her  hus- 
band is  a  policeman,  a  sergeant,  if  you  please  I" 
I  had  never  understood  before  what  it  meant  to  be 
the  wife  of  a  police  sergeant.  "But,"  added 
Lillie,  "I  don't  wonder  you  thought  she  was  a 
sport;  she's  the  awfullest  talkin'  woman  down 
there." 

Then,  lowering  her  voice  and  leaning  confiden- 


36  The  Woman  Who  Waits 

tially  over  toward  me,  as  I  sat  slowly  roasting 
beside  the  rusty  little  stove,  Lillie  retailed  to  me 
some  of  the  more  memorable  and  outrageous 
sayings  of  Myrtle,  the  wife  of  the  police  ser- 
geant. 

I  learned  much  about  life  that  afternoon  from 
Lillie,  about  the  life  of  the  Loop,  the  life  of 
men,  the  low,  common,  vulgar,  intimate  life  of 
laboring  men  and  women. 

"I  tell  you  there  ain't  a  nicer  place  in  Chicago 
to  work  than  that  place,"  she  went  on.  "The 
manager  treats  you  right  and  them  chefs  is  the 
nicest  that  I  ever  had  anything  to  do  with.  Why, 
in  some  places,  the  chefs  are  that  mean  they'll 
pick  up  a  plate  of  stew  and  throw  it  at  you ! 
You'll  find  when  you  get  to  working  around  that 
conditions  ain't  no  better  anywhere  than  they  are 
at  number  40.  I'm  sorry  you  left.  You  should 
a  took  what  the  old  man  said  to  you.  You  know 
you  can't  sass  the  manager  or  the  head  waitress, 
not  and  stay  in  the  place." 

When  I  was  ready  to  go,  Lillie  showed  me  her 
little  closet  kitchen  where  she  prepared  the  food 
for  herself  and  her  "man"  and  then  said,  "I'll  go 
along  with  you  as  far  as  the  butcher  shop."  She 
put  a  skirt  over  the  one  that  she  already  had  on, 
slipped  into  her  coat  and  tied  her  head  up  in  a 
scarf  fastening  the  ends  well  over  her  chin  "on 
account  of  my  teeth,"  she  explained. 


Lillie  37 

When  we  reached  the  lower  hall,  she  said, 
"Come  on,  I  want  to  Introduce  you  to  'Mam,'  and 
she  led  me  way  towards  a  back  room. 

"Mam"  proved  to  be  the  elderly  woman  in 
spectacles  and  white  apron,  the  keeper  of  the 
hotel,  who  had  opened  the  door  for  me.  The 
kitchen  where  we  found  her  was  apparently  very 
small,  but  in  reality  it  must  have  been  of  fair 
size,  for  it  contained  a  cooking  range  which 
seemed  to  be  fighting  with  a  dining-room  table  for 
first  place,  a  sink  which  vainly  tried  to  escape 
notice  by  vanishing  obliquely  towards  the  wall  in 
one  corner,  a  sewing  machine,  two  chairs,  astride 
one  of  which  sat  an  old  man  who  regarded  us 
with  stolid  composure,  a  poll  parrot  in  a  huge 
gilded  cage  which  kept  shrieking  "Who's  your 
friend.  Mam?  who's  your  friend?"  and  "Give 
poor  Joe  a  cracker,  Mam!"  in  an  alternating  sing- 
song, and  two  little  woolly  dogs  as  white  as  the 
snow  down  below  in  the  street.  On  the  table  and 
on  the  sewing  machine  were  piles  of  women's 
under  muslins,  the  kind  one  sees  in  the  shops  on 
the  tables  marked  79c  or  95c. 

"Mam"  said  that  she  was  pleased  to  meet  me 
and  I  assured  her  that  the  pleasure  was  mutual. 
We  then  exchanged  a  few  remarks  about  the 
weather  and  about  Lillie's  illness,  and  Mam  made 
the  parrot  speak  a  piece  for  me  and  the  two 
woolly  dogs  stand  on  their  hind  legs  and  shake 


38  The  JVoman  Who  Waits 

hands,  and  by  that  time  I  felt  that  I  must  go. 

LiUie  accompanied  me  down  the  street  until 
we  came  to  the  butcher  shop.  I  bade  her  good- 
bye and  then  watched  her  disappear  through  the 
frost-covered  door  of  the  dingy,  dirty  little  shop 
that  caters  to  the  trade  of  the  "down  and  outers" 
who  inhabit  this  region  of  Chicago,  because  they 
cannot  afford  to  pay  carfare  and  must  live  within 
walking  distance  of  the  places  which  offer  them 
some  chance  of  casual  employment. 

I  never  saw  Lillie  again,  but  with  her  uneven 
skirts  flapping  over  the  run-down  heels  of  her 
shoes,  her  shabby  jacket  buttoned  across  her  flat 
chest,  the  ugly  gash  cut  in  her  head,  the  scarf 
tied  over  her  neglected  and  aching  teeth  as  she 
passed  through  the  door  of  the  little  butcher 
shop  to  purchase  "the  soup  bone  for  her  man's 
supper,"  she  has  always  represented  to  me  all 
that  is  most  decent,  all  that  there  is  of  domesticity 
in  that  port  of  homeless  men  and  women. 


CHAPTER  IV 

FEEDING  THE  "LOOP-HOUNDS" 

I  DID  not  find  it  an  easy  matter  to  get  my  second 
job.  I  went  from  place  to  place  only  to  be  told 
that  I  was  not  wanted.  At  one  place  I  learned 
that  I  could  have  work  fiv^e  hours  per  day,  for 
which  I  would  receive  $5.00  per  week,  and  that  I 
must  buy  two  uniforms  consisting  of  a  white  skirt 
at  $2.00,  a  waist  at  $1.25,  and  an  apron  at  75c. 
These  must  be  purchased  through  the  company 
and  it  would  be  part  of  my  work  to  keep  them 
laundered.     I  did  not  take  the  job. 

Finally  at  East  Congress  Street,  an  oldish 
young  man  told  me  I  might  work  from  eleven  to 
eight.  I  suggested  eleven  to  two-thirty.  He 
agreed  to  give  me  a  trial. 

He  was  a  nice  httle  man.  He  showed  me  where 
to  hang  my  coat  on  a  nail  in  the  back  of  the  room 
and  gave  me  a  tiny  white  apron  to  put  on.  Then 
he  took  me  into  the  kitchen  and  said,  with  a  wave 
of  his  hand,  "Over  there's  where  you  get  your 
hot  stuff,  and  there  are  your  sandwiches,  and  des- 
serts and  coffee  you  pick  up  yourself.    You'll  find 

39 


40  The  Woman  Who  Waits 

the   napkins    and   glasses    in    the    dining-room." 

There  was  almost  no  one  feeding  in  the  res- 
taurant at  that  hour.  Some  girls  were  changing 
table  cloths  and  setting  up  the  tables,  others  were 
sitting  in  the  back  of  the  room  washing,  wiping, 
and  filling  sugar  bowls.  The  sound  of  dishes 
and  silver  shding  in  and  out  of  pans  came  muffled 
through  the  doors  leading  to  the  kitchen  and  the 
smell  of  roasting  meat  and  boiling  vegetables 
made  pungent  the  whole  atmosphere  of  the  little 
place.  Occasionally  some  one  would  sniff  the  air 
appreciatively  and  say,  "Smells  good  today, 
doesn't  it?" 

I  helped  a  girl  to  fold  napkins. 

"Ever  worked  before?"  she  asked. 

"Yes." 

"Well,  you'll  like  it  here.  This  is  the  grandest 
place  and  they're  the  grandest  people.  That  fel- 
low you  was  with,  he's  the  manager,  he's  Billie 
Foyle,  and  the  cashier  is  his  sister.  They're  just 
grand!" 

"What  kind  of  people  are  the  customers?"  I 
asked. 

"Mostly  women,"  answered  the  girl,  "and 
some  of  'em  are  darn  cranky.  But  you  can't  bawl 
'em  out.  You've  got  to  get  along  with  'em. 
Billie  won't  stand  for  anything  else.  They  just 
about  never  give  you  a  tip,  and  if  they  do  it's  a 
nickel  and  they  act' like  it  was  a  ten-dollar  bill." 


Feeding  the  "Loop-Hounds''  41 

"No  men  at  all?" 

"Once  in  a  while  a  man  blows  in.  But  he  looks 
lonesome  in  here.  Men  most  always  give  you  a 
dime,  but  tips  depend  on  you.  If  they  like  you, 
you  gotta  good  chance  for  ten  cents." 

The  scene  changed.  The  rush  began.  I  was 
soon  swamped.  I  attempted  to  take  three  or  four 
orders  at  once,  got  them  hopelessly  confused,  for- 
got napkins,  spoons,  and  glasses  of  water,  and 
tried  to  return  to  the  kitchen  through  the  wrong 
door. 

"For  God's  sake,  look  what  you're  doin' !" 
"My  God,  girl,  can't  you  see  I  got  my  hands  full 
of  hot  stuff!"  "Other  door,  girlie!"  were  the  re- 
marks that  were  shot  at  me  by  the  exasperated 
waitresses.  Meantime  Billie's  eye  was  on  me. 
I  felt  it  even  when  my  back  was  turned.  It  was 
clear  that  my  days  at  Foyle's  Teashop  were  to 
number  no  more  than  one  or  two. 

The  girls  crowded  through  the  kitchen  throw- 
ing their  dirty  dishes  into  one  pan,  their  dirty 
silver  into  another,  and  stacking  the  glasses  on 
a  shelf  where  they  could  be  grabbed  and  used 
again. 

"One  roast  beef." 

"One  chicken  salad  sandwich!" 

"Two  on  the  fire,  chef!  Quick,  my  customer's 
waiting!" 

"That  ain't  your  sandwich.     Quit  pickin'  up 


42  The  Woman  Who  Waits 

my  order!"  were  the  remarks  that  filled  the  little 
kitchen  in  quick  succession.  A  girl  said  to  me  in 
a  low  voice  in  passing. 

"There's  twenty  cents  on  your  table,  dear,  bet- 
ter pick  it  up." 

I  hastened  back  to  pick  up  the  tips  that  I  had 
somehow  earned.  There  were  two  dimes  and 
they  had  been  left  by  two  men.  Under  one  lay 
a  man's  business  card  with  his  name,  address, 
and  'phone  number  upon  it  I  crumbled  it  up  and 
threw  it  among  the  dirty  dishes.  Later  I  learned 
to  know  the  meaning  of  the  card  left  down 
turned  upon  the  waitress'  table. 

At  half-past  two  the  girls  sat  down  to  lunch  at 
two  little  tables  in  the  back  of  the  room.  They 
were  permitted  to  eat  anything  they  wished.  This 
is  what  they  did  eat:  meat,  salads,  pastry,  espe- 
cially French  pastry,  and  ice  cream.  The  cashier 
sat  down  with  them.  They  called  her  "Rose," 
and  treated  her  as  one  of  themselves.  They 
talked  about  their  clothes,  their  housekeeping, 
prices  of  food,  and  men.  They  always  talked  of 
men.  Then  they  turned  to  the  discussion  of  the 
girl  whose  place  I  had  been  hired  to  fill  and  who 
had  failed  to  appear  at  work  a  couple  of  days 
before.  It  was  because  she  had  met  with  a  hor- 
rible experience  in  a  "Yellow  Cab." 

"It  was  a  darn  shame,"  said  some  one,  "she 
was  a   decent  girl  till  then.      But   I  kept  tellin' 


Feeding  the  "Loop-Hounds"  43 

her  that  she  couldn't  go  out  with  fellows  and 
drink  and   expect  to  stay  straight." 

"Sure  not,"  said  another,  "fellows  ain't  spend- 
ing their  money  takin'  you  to  "cabarets  for  nothin'. 
You  can't  expect  'em  to." 

"And  if  you  once  get  stewed,"  said  the  first 
girl,  "you're  lost." 

I  was  two  days  at  Foyle's.  On  the  second,  in 
attempting  to  enter  the  kitchen  through  the  wrong 
door,  I  collided  with  another  girl  and  her  tray 
went  crashing  to  the  floor.  When  I  was  ready 
to  go  home,  Rose  paid  me  $1.50  for  my  two  days' 
work  and  told  me,  as  nicely  as  she  could,  that  they 
had  hired  a  steady  girl  and  would  need  me  no 
longer. 

I  was  again  in  search  of  a  job  and  in  a  few 
days  I  found  one.  An  amiable  manager  of  a  tea 
room  one  day  directed  me  to  the  Cafe  des  Re- 
flections with  the  remark,  "They  are  always  put- 
ting on  girls." 

The   Cafe   des   Reflections   in   a   basement   on 

Street,  is  a  restaurant  of  mirrors.     The 

ceihng  is  mirrors,  the  walls  are  mirrors  and  the 
pillars  and  posts  that  support  the  ceiling  are 
mirrors.  There  are  glass-topped  tables  and  white 
painted  chairs  and  blazing  electric  lights.  The 
effect  upon  entering  is  like  a  blare  of  trumpets.  I 
found  later  why  the  Cafe  was  always  putting  on 
girls.     It  was  because  of  these  mirrors. 


44  The  Woman  Who  Waits 

I  consulted  the  manager.  He  called  the  head 
waitress. 

"Do  you  need  a  girl,  Ellen?"  he  asked. 

"No,"  said  she,  "I  have  one  coming  from  the 
Alliance." 

"Take  this  one  anyway,"  said  he,  "she  looks 
like  a  very  bright  girl  and  I  would  rather  have 
too  many  girls  than  not  enough." 

Ellen  led  me  to  the  basement  dressing-room, 
assigned  me  a  locker  and  gave  me  an  apron.  She 
told  me  to  report  to  her  as  soon  as  I  was  ready. 
I  hurried  into  my  uniform. 

The  noon  rush  was  on.  People  streamed  into 
the  cafe.  Dazzled  by  the  glitter  and  excited  by 
the  hurry  and  rush  of  the  place,  these  clutched 
hastily  at  the  backs  of  chairs  lest  they  lose  a 
chance  for  a  place.  Girls  with  trays  laden  with 
food  and  balanced  perilously  upon  their  right 
hands  wound  in  and  out  among  the  glass-topped 
tables.  Bus  boys  with  trays  of  dirty  dishes  held 
high  above  their  heads,  slipped  through  the  crowds 
on  their  glittering  way  to  the  kitchen. 

Ellen  stood  in  the  front  of  the  room  ready  to 
seat  the  patrons  as  they  entered.  In  her  left 
hand  she  held  the  long  menu  cards  ready  to  hand 
to  the  guests.  As  soon  as  a  "party"  came  down 
the  basement  stairs,  she  signaled  to  them,  then 
led  the  way  to  vacant  tables,  walking  with  that 
swaying  movement  of  the  hips  that  is  characteris- 


Feeding  the  "Loop-Hounds"  45 

tic  of  the  head  waitress,  her  blond  head  held  high, 
her  bosom,  compressed  within  a  tight  brassiere, 
rising  and  falling  underneath  the  lace  of  her 
"open  work"  blouse,  and  her  waist  held  taut  in 
the  viselike  grip  of  her  double-barreled  Nemo 
corset. 

She  assigned  me  two  tables.  I  had  to  have 
help  with  my  orders.  At  this  hour  the  Cafe  des 
Reflections  was  serving  a  table  d'hote  luncheon  of 
four  courses.  There  were  girls  here  however, 
who  were  waiting  on  four  or  five  tables  and  who 
found  time  to  smile,  to  chew  gum,  and  to  touch 
the  guests  lightly  on  the  arm  as  they  served  them, 
but  I  could  not  remember  whether  the  man  at 
my  first  table  was  ready  for  dessert  or  salad  or 
whether  the  lady  at  my  second  was  waiting  for 
her  finger  bowl.  And  this  was  a  matter  of  ex- 
treme importance,  for  the  finger-bowl  is  the  shib- 
boleth of  the  lowbrow  and  the  highbrow  res- 
taurant, and  the  Cafe  des  Reflections  is  the  cheap- 
est place  where  one  can  be  got  in  the  Loop. 

In  my  anxiety  and  haste  I  spilled  soup  upon  the 
hat  of  one  man.  Covered  with  confusion  I  began 
to  apologize.  He  was  a  most  gallant  gentleman 
and  with  an  air  of  great  magnanimity  insisted 
upon  leaving  me  a  tip  although  I  begged  him  not 
to  do  so. 

At  half-past  two  Ellen  told  me  that  I  might 
go,  but  that  I  must  return  at  half-past  five. 


46  The  Woman  Who  Waits 

"But  I  want  only  a  lunch  job,"  I  said. 

"We  don't  have  lunch  girls  here,  only  steady 
girls  and  two-meal  girls,"  said  she,  and  added  with 
the  air  of  a  Prussian  general,  "You  are  a  two- 
meal  girl.  You  work  from  eleven  to  two-thirty 
and  from  five-thirty  to  eight-thirty." 

"And  what  are  the  wages?" 

"You  get  six  a  week  from  the  house  and  the 
side  money  you  make  is  up  to  you." 

I  went  down  to  the  little  basement  dressing- 
room  where  I  found  laughter  and  confusion.  The 
girls  were  changing  from  their  black  uniforms 
into  stylish  street  costumes.  They  crowded 
around  the  one  little  mirror,  splashing  their  cheeks 
with  rouge  taken  from  tiny  boxes,  dabbing  their 
noses  with  little  powder  puffs,  and  outlining  their 
lips  with  sticks  of  vermillion  paint.  The  air 
buzzed  with   feminine   voices. 

"Where  are  you  going.  Marietta?  .  .  .  It's 
the  States  for  me.  North  American?  .  .  .  Why 
don't  you  try  something  classy?  I'm  for  a  cig- 
arette at  the  Russian  Tea  Room.  .  .  Oh,  hell, 
my  garter's  busted  !  Gee  !  Winter  Garden's  punk 
this  week!  Don't  hog  the  mirror,  you  son  of 
a !" 

The  girls  at  the  Cafe  des  Reflections  used  bet- 
ter grammar  than  I  had  been  accustomed  to  in  the 
"Quick  Eats,"  but  they  were  just  as  careless  in 


Feeding  the  ^'Loop-Hounds"  47 

their  genders  when  they  swore  and  they  swore  a 
great  deal. 

I  seemed  the  only  girl  who  was  not  changing 
for  the  street.  I  wore  the  shabby  black  suit  that 
I  had  considered  suitable  for  a  waitress.  I 
thought  the  other  girls  were  a  little  contemp- 
tuous of  me  because  of  it. 

"I'm  going  over  to  the  Alliance,"  said  a  girl. 
"I'm  tired  and  need  rest." 

"Oh,  gee!  life's  too  short  to  spend  much  of  it 
at  the  Alliance,  Flossie,"  said  some  girl  gaily, 
"You  can  go  there  when  there  is  no  other  place 
to  go." 

I  told  Flossie  that  I  should  like  to  go  to  the 
Alliance  with  her. 

"Sure,  come  on,"  she  replied. 

On  the  fifth  floor  of  the  Merchants  Building 
on  State  Street,  is  a  door  with  a  sign  on  it  which 
reads,  "Junior  Alliance  Rest  Room."  Flossie  and 
I  entered  through  this  door  and  found  ourselves 
#n  a  large  pleasant  room  furnished  with  light- 
colored  porch  furniture.  Gay  rugs  were  on  the 
floor.  In  two  corners  were  writing  tables  lighted 
by  small  wicker  lamps,  and  in  another  corner  were 
two  sewing  machines,  while  the  fourth  corner  was 
partitioned  off  to  form  a  tiny  kitchenette  and  laun* 
dry.  A  second  large  room  led  from  the  first,  but 
the  door  between  was  shut.     It  was  always  kept 


48  The  Woman  Who  Waits 

shut,  for  in  the  second  room  tired  girls  were 
stretched  out  on  narrow  cots  resting.  Most  of 
them  needed  rest." 

"Is  this  a  Waitresses'  Alliance?"  I  asked  of 
Flossie. 

"No,"  said  she. 

"Well,  what  is  it,  then?" 

"I  don't  know." 

"Who  supports  it?" 

"I  don't  know." 

A  stupid  Scandinavian  woman  seemed  to  be 
the  matron.     She  was  sewing. 

"Is  this  a  working  girls'  club?"  I  asked  her. 

"Naw,"  she  said,  and  nothing  more. 

"What  is  it,  then?    Who  gives  it  to  the  girls?" 

"The  society,"  she  went  on  sewing. 

"What  society?" 

"Just  the  society."     She  continued  to  sew. 

"What's  the  name  of  the  society?" 

"It's  no  name,  just  the  big  society."  She  bent 
her  head  low  over  her  work. 

"But  who  belongs  to  it,  Jews,  Catholics?" 

"Naw,  just  ladies.  Mrs.  Armour  and  Mrs. 
McCormick,  and  ladies." 

Light  dawned  upon  me.  "You  mean  some 
society  ladies  give  it  to  the  girls,"  I  said. 

"Yaw,"  said  she. 

The  big  room  was  full  of  girls.  Some  were 
curled  up  on  couches,  some  were  stretched  out  on 


Feeding  the  "Loop-Hounds'*  49 

steamer  chairs,  others  were  talking  together,  but 
many  were  merely  sitting  saying  nothing.  There 
were  plenty  of  old  magazines  on  the  table  but  no 
one  was  reading  them. 

Flossie  greeted  her  friends  and  then  we  went 
into  the  rest  room.  We  lay  down  on  the  little 
cots.  I  could  not  sleep,  however,  because  of  the 
noise  made  by  the  girls  in  the  bathrooms  and 
shower  baths  which  opened  from  this  room.  These 
girls  splashed  and  giggled  and  gurgled  and  swore. 
They  flung  gibes  at  each  other  of  the  same  coarse 
good-natured  kind  that  I  had  become  familiar 
with  among  the  girls  at  the  restaurant.  I  visited 
the  place  several  times  and  always  the  same  sort 
of  conversations,  mingled  with  the  damp,  sweaty 
odors  of  bodies,  floated  over  the  cots  where  the 
tired  girls  lay,  as  the  doors  of  the  bathrooms  were 
opened  and  shut. 

"Better  cut  it  out,  kid!  Too  much  is  not  a 
good  thing!"  .  .  .  "Say,  you're  beginning  to 
show  what  you  do  nights."  .  .  .  "There's  some- 
thing about  a  cigarette  that  gets  me.  I  can't  leave 
'em  alone."  .  .  .  "Say,  do  you  think  you  own 
this  place?"   .   .   .   "That's  my  towel,  you  damn 

bug!     Quit  grabbin'  that  soap!"  .  .     were 

some  of  the  remarks  that  I  overheard  from  time 
to  time. 

When  I  returned  to  the  restaurant  I  thought  I 
had  been  promoted.    Ellen  gave  me  four  tables, 


50  The  JVoman  IVho  Waits 

and  they  were  up  in  the  front  of  the  room.  I 
realized  that  I  had  been  demoted  when  the  girl 
next  to  me  said:  "It's  too  bad,  kid,  it's  the  poorest 
station  in  the  house;  all  the  hens  sit  here,  but  the 
new  girl  always  gets  it.  You'll  get  moved  back 
in  time." 

I  got  along  well  at  dinner.  It  was  tray  service 
and,  although  trays  are  heavy,  they  save  trips. 
But  there  seemed  never  to  be  any  dishes.  Silver, 
glasses,  napkins,  were  not  to  be  had  when  I 
needed  them  most.  The  bus  boys  were  supposed 
to  keep  our  buffets  set  up  with  necessary  dishes 
but  they  never  did  even  though  we  tipped  them. 
The  usual  tip  to  a  bus  boy  is  ten  cents  a  meal. 

At  half-past  eight  I  descended  to  the  basement 
dressing-room  thoroughly  exhausted.  But,  al- 
though I  was  tired,  nervously  tired,  I  did  not  want 
to  go  home.  I  was  in  a  mood  for  anything,  any- 
thing but  home.  The  other  girls  were  dressing 
to  go  to  the  theater,  to  a  movie,  or  to  a  cabaret. 
I  was  sorry  that  I  had  made  no  such  plans  myself. 
I  had  been  in  the  habit  of  reading  or  studying 
quietly  in  the  evenings  until  ten  or  eleven  o'clock, 
but  after  the  excitement  of  such  a  day,  I  felt  that 
to  dance  in  a  cabaret  to  the  music  of  a  jazz  band 
was  just  the  sort  of  recreation  that  I  would  appre- 
ciate. One  dollar  and  ninety-five  cents  in  dimes 
and  nickels,  my  tips  for  the  day,  jingled  lightly  in 
my  pocket.     The  jingle  added  to  my  excitement. 


Feeding  the  ''Loop-Hounds"  51 

I  was  beginning  to  feel  the  fascination  of  the 
tip. 

The  next  day  was  Sunday  and  Ellen  had  told 
me  that  I  would  have  to  work  from  eleven  in  the 
morning  until  eight  in  the  evening  with  no  time  off 
in  the  afternoon.  I  was  afraid  that  I  could  not 
do  it,  but  when  I  had  finished  the  day,  I  was  not 
so  tired  as  I  had  been  on  Saturday.  The  Sunday 
work  was  more  regular  and  not  so  confusing.  My 
tips  for  the  day  came  to  two  dollars  and  sixty-five 
cents.  Never  before  had  ten  cents  seemed  so 
much  to  me  as  the  little  shining  dimes  that  I  picked 
up  from  amongst  the  dirty  dishes  which  each  guest 
left  behind  him.  I  learned  to  look  as  anxiously  as 
any  other  girl  for  this  appreciation. 

By  Monday  I  had  become  relatively  acclimated 
to  mirrors  and  the  glitter  of  the  Cafe  des  Reflec- 
tions. In  the  morning,  when  I  first  went  to  work, 
Emma,  the  girl  whose  station  was  next  to  mine, 
wanted  to  leave  the  floor  for  a  few  minutes.  She 
asked  me  to  look  after  two  men  whom  she  had 
served  and  to  get  her  tip  if  they  left  her  one, 
before  the  bus  boys  could  steal  it. 

I  got  the  tip  for  her.  I  also  served  an  old  man 
at  one  of  her  tables.  When  she  returned,  I  gave 
her  the  dime  that  had  been  left  for  her,  but  when 
she  cleared  the  table  where  the  old  man  whom  I 
had  served  had  been  sitting,  she  stole  the  dime 
he  had  left  for  me. 


LIBRARY 
ONlVERSin  OF  ILLINOIS 

\mmh 


52  The  Woman  Who  Waits 

Later  she  borrowed  my  pencil  and  kept  it.  I 
asked  her  for  it,  and  she  gave  me  hers  which  was 
like  mine,  but  broken.  It  was  only  by  insisting 
that  I  recovered  mine.  All  day  she  kept  slipping 
my  orders  on  to  trays  that  were  half  full  of  dirty 
dishes  and  taking  my  tray  for  her  own  use.  Yet 
she  did  not  seem  to  dislike  me,  for  she  spent 
every  leisure  moment  in  good-natured  gossip  with 
me. 

"You'll  make  no  dough  here,  kid,"  she  said 
kindly,  "if  you  wear  a  wedding  ring.  String  it 
around  your  neck  if  you're  afraid  to  leave  it 
home." 

When  I  was  ready  to  go  home  that  night,  the 
cashier  stopped  me  and  said,  "You  owe  the  house 
thirty  cents,  Fannie,.  Can  you  pay  me  now  out 
of  your  tips?" 

"How  is  that?"  I  asked. 

"Here  are  two  checks,  this  one  with  an  under- 
charge of  twenty  cents  and  this  with  one  of  ten 
cents.  You  have  to  make  them  good.  And  here's 
one  with  an  overcharge  of  ten  cents.  You  don't 
have  to  pay  that,"  and  she  slipped  the  checks  over 
the  spindle  on  her  desk. 

"I  have  that  last  coming  to  me,  I  suppose," 
said  I. 

She  looked  at  me,  and  there  was  infinite  sar- 
casm in  her  glance.  "That  goes  to  the  house," 
said  she. 


Feeding  the  "Loop-Hounds"  53 

I  handed  her  the  thirty  cents,  three  precious 
dimes  from  my  little  store, 

I  worked  at  the  Cafe  des  Reflections  five  days 
in  all.  I  felt  that  I  was  getting  along  better  all 
the  time  until  suddenly  on  the  evening  of  the  fifth 
day,  everything  seemed  all  at  once  to  go  wrong. 
The  crowd  began  to  arrive  as  early  as  half-past 
five  and  there  was  a  steady  stream  all  evening. 
There  were  not  dishes  enough  to  2fO  around. 
There  was  no  silver,  no  napl^ins,  no  bread.  In 
the  kitchen  there  was  a  shortage  of  food. 

The  kitchen  became  a  mad  house.  The  cook 
swore  at  the  under-cook.  The  dish  washers 
cursed  the  waitresses  who  kept  grabbing  dishes 
out  of  the  dirty  dish  water  and  drying  them  on 
napkins.  The  pantry  maids  snapped  and  snarled 
while  the  waitresses  shrieked  their  orders  high 
above  the  din. 

About  eight  o'clock  a  dark  nervous  man  and  a 
very  blond  lady  sat  down  at  my  small  table. 
They  ordered  two  fifty-cent  dinners  with  beer. 
I  brought  their  soup  and  immediately  afterwards 
their  meat  course  and  beer.  Then  I  went  into  the 
kitchen  to  get  dessert  for  four  little  ballet  girls 
from  the  Winter  Garden  who  were  at  one  of  my 
larger  tables.  I  was  loading  my  tray  down  when 
Emma  rushed  into  the  kitchen  and  shouted: 

"Come  in  here,  quick,  Fannie,  that  fellow  you 
just  waited  on  is  raisin'  Hell!" 


54  The  Woman  Who  Waits 

I  hurried  back  into  the  restaurant.  When  the 
dark  man  caught  sight  of  me,  he  pounded  on  the 
table  and  shrieked,  "I  want  some  service  here." 

"What  is  it  that  you  wish?"  I  asked. 

"What  do  I  wish!"  he  repeated  savagely, 
"I  wish  my  coffee,  of  course." 

I  brought  the  coffee  as  quickly  as  I  could.  We 
were  in  the  habit  of  serving  coffee,  with  the  des- 
sert unless  the  patron  asked  to  have  it  with  the 
meat,  and  it  had  not  occurred  to  me  that  this 
man  would  want  both  beer  and  coffee  with  his 
meat. 

I  served  the  dessert  to  the  little  ballet  girls  and 
then  began  to  remove  the  dirty  dishes  from  the 
table  where  the  dark  man  and  the  blond  lady 
were  sitting.  He  kept  growling  at  me  while  she 
sat  embarrassed  in  silence.  A  fork  slipped  from 
a  dirty  plate  and  slid  rapidly  down  the  seam  of 
the  man's  trousers.  He  jumped  from  his  chair 
as  though  he  had  been  stuck  with  a  pin,  waved 
his  arms  frantically  in  the  air,  screaming  and 
cursing.  All  eyes  In  the  restaurant  were  turned 
towards  him.  He  rose  and  stalked  in  majestic  in- 
dignation past  the  cashier's  desk  and  up  the  stairs 
that  led  into  the  street.  The  blond  lady  laid  a 
quarter  on  the  table  for  me  and  then  she  fol- 
lowed him,  stopping  on  her  way  at  the  cashier's 
desk  to  pay  the  bill.  That  night  the  little  ballet 
girls  each  left  me  five  cents  as  tokens  of  their 


Feeding  the  "Loop-Hounds"  55 

sympathy.  They  had  never  before  given  me  a 
tip. 

When  I  was  ready  to  go  home-,  Ellen  came  to 
me  and  said,  though  very  kindly,  "The  manager 
says  I'll  have  to  let  you  go,  you  aren't  experienced 
enough  for  this  place."  And  she  handed  me  an 
envelope  containing  my  wages  for  the  five  days. 

I  went  down  to  the  basement  dressing-room  in 
disgrace.  The  two-meal  girls  were  changing  into 
their  street  suits.  It  was  a  gay  scene  and  I  felt 
that  I  should  miss  it  when  I  had  no  longer  a  part 
in  it.  Marietta  was  tilting  a  ravishing  hat  over 
one  eye  at  an  irresistible  angle;  Lorraine,  seated 
upon  the  floor,  was  pulling  a  pair  of  lavender  silk 
stockings  over  her  slender  young  legs;  Dolly  was 
pasting  a  microscopic  bit  of  court  plaster  just 
above  the  dimple  on  her  right  cheek,  and  Irene 
was  carefully  adjusting  a  hair  net  and  nose  veil. 
All  were  talking  about  their  engagements  which 
they  had  for  the  evening  or  for  the  night  and 
quite  frankly  saying  v/hat  they  expected  to  get 
from  this  or  that  fellow  in  the  line  of  money, 
amusement,  or  clothes. 

Flossie  entered  the  dressing-room. 

"Ellen  told  me  'he'  made  her  fire  you,"  said 
she,  "she  feels  real  bad  about  It,"  and  then  she 
added,  'Tm  awful  sorry,  kid." 

I  was  exhausted  and  my  nerves  were  raw.  The 
tears  began  chasing  each  other  down  my  cheeks. 


$6  The  Woman  Who  Waits 

1  could  make  no  reply  to  Flossie.  Finally  I  gave 
myself  up  to  my  grief  and  sobbed  with  uncon- 
trolled ardor.  The  girls  flocked  about  me  and 
began  to  sympathize. 

"I  know  that  fellow,"  said  Marietta,  "he  was 
brought  up  in  my  town.  He's  in  vaudeville  and 
that's  his  partner,  that  blond  that  was  with  him. 
He's  a  dope  fiend,  takes  morphine.  You  don't 
want  to  pay  any  attention  to  him,  he  don't  know 
what  he's  doing  any  of  the  time." 

"But  the  boss  made  Ellen  fire  her  just  the 
same,"  explained  Flossie. 

"It  was  a  damn  shame  to  fire  you  for  that, 
kid,"  said  Tillie,  a  big  blond  as  she  put  her  arm 
around  me.  "Fm  quittin'  myself  tonight,  the 
damn  place  gets  on  my  nerves.  Don't  you  care, 
you'll  get  another  job." 

"But  it  makes  you  feel  so mean  to  be  fired," 

interposed  one  of  the  others. 

"Yes,  it  does,"  admitted  Flossie,  "but  don't  cry, 
Fannie,  it  ain't  worth  it.  Get  on  your  things  and 
come  along  home  with  me.  You  live  South,  don't 
you?" 

At  the  Elevated  I  had  completely  regained 
my  composure  and  was  ready  to  smile  at  the  whole 
thing.  Flossie  and  I  settled  ourselves  for  a  little 
visit  together. 

"The  Cafe  des  Reflections  is  one  of  the  best 
places  in  the  Loop,"  said  she,  "and  it's  too  bad 


Feeding  the  "Loop-Hounds"  57 

you  struck  it  before  you  were  entirely  experienced. 
Now,  I'll  tell  you  what  to  do;  you  go  up  to  the 
Illinois  Waitresses'  Alliance  at  —  W.  Washing- 
ton Street  and  tell  Hilda  I  sent  you.  She's  the 
head  of  the  Alliance  and  she'll  send  you  around  to 
work  extra  until  you  get  experience.  Don't  try 
another  steady  job  until  you  are  an  experienced 
waitress." 

I  promised  Flossie  that  I  would  do  as  she  said 
and  I  wrote  the  address  of  the  Alliance  on  a  card 
that  I  had  in  my  purse  and  then  I  ventured  to  ask 
a  question  that  had  been  in  my  mind. 

"Flossie,"  I  asked,  "are  Marietta  and  Lor- 
raine and  those  other  girls  as  bad  as  they  try  to 
make  us  believe.  I  have  been  wondering  if  per- 
haps they  were  not  trying  to  show  off  a  little  but 
did  not  really  do  the  things  they  say  they  do." 

"Yes,"  answered  Flossie,  "they  are  just  as 
tough  as  they  say  they  are.  I  did  just  as  they  are 
doing  for  years.  You  seel  was  left  a  widow  when 
I  was  only  twenty,  and  my  mother-in-law  took  my 
boy  to  raise.  I  worked  in  all  the  restaurants  up 
and  down  the  Santa  Fe  and  I  went  out  with  the 
boys  and  had  as  good  a  time  as  anybody.  But 
I  wouldn't  do  anything  like  that  now.  I'm  mar- 
ried and  it  wouldn't  be  right." 

"Does  your  husband  know  that  you  led  this 
kindof  hfe?" 

"Of  course,"  laughed  Flossie,  "he  led  the  same 


58  The  Woman  Who  Waits 

kind  himself."     But  we  are  satisfied  with  each 
other  now." 

By  this  time  we  had  reached  51st  Street,  and 
with  a  cordial  invitation  for  me  "to  come  see  her 
soon,"  Flossie  bade  me  goodnight  and  left  the 
train. 


CHAPTER  V\ 

WORKING    EXTRA 

I  FOUND  the  Waitresses'  Alliance  without  any 
trouble  and  introduced  myself  to  Hilda. 

"Sit  down,"  she  said,  "I  get  you  a  job." 

She  then  went  on  answering  telephone  calls, 
completely  ignoring  me.  I  began  to  study  Hilda. 
She  was  short  and  stout,  of  middle  age,  with  a 
false  front  of  brown  hair  that  was  not  as  decep- 
tive as  it  was  intended  to  be.  A  pair  of  nose 
glasses  tilted  uncertainly  upon  the  bridge  of  her 
small  nose.  She  wore  a  fussy  shirt  waist  that  had 
been  laundered  too  many  times  In  the  wash  bowl 
at  home  and  a  silk  skirt  with  three  broad  bands 
of  satin  around  the  bottom.  A  pencil  poked  into 
the  false  front  just  above  her  ear  added  a  rakish 
touch.  Her  appearance  in  no  way  betrayed  her 
for  the  genius  and  diplomat  I  soon  discovered- 
her  to  be. 

It  was  ten  o'clock  when  I  arrived  and  there 
had  been  but  one  girl  besides  myself  In  the  office. 
Presently,  however,  the  door  opened  letting  in  in 
rapid    succession    some    twenty   or    thirty    girls. 

59 


6o  The  Woman  Who  Waits 

There  were  all  types,  the  young  and  pretty,  the 
plain  and  neat,  the  modish  person,  the  sloven,  and 
the  frump.  They  distributed  themselves  about 
the  office;  some  crossed  their  legs  and  read  news- 
papers, some  gossiped,  and  many  merely  sat 
quietly  with  hands  lying  loosely  in  their  laps  and 
did  nothing  at  all. 

The  phone  began  to  ring.  "Main  246,"  said 
Hilda  as  she  took  down  the  receiver.  "Yes,  I 
send  you  couple  girls." 

"Who  wants  to  go  to  Worthley's  ?"  she  called 
out. 

Two  girls  arose  and  passed  out  of  the  door 
without  saying  a  word. 

A  little  silence  followed.  A  girl  arose  from  her 
seat  near  the  table,  walked  over  to  the  steam  radi- 
ator, spat  behind  it,  and  nonchalantly  resumed 
her  place  at  the  table.  The  'phone  began  to  ring 
again. 

"Yes,  ma'am,"  said  Hilda.  "I  get  you  two 
girls  over  there  by  'leven  o'clock.  Yes,  ma'am, 
you  can  depend  upon  me,"  and  turning  to  the  room 
full  of  girls,  she  called  out. 

"The  woman  at  the  College  Club,  she  want 
two  girls  in  a  black  waist.  She  pay  a  dollar. 
Who  want  to  go?"  and  two  girls  responded  to  this 
request  juct  as  they  had  responded  to  the  former 
one. 


Working  Extra  6i 

This  occurred  again  and  again  until  Hilda  had 
sent  out  every  girl  in  the  office  except  me. 

"How  much  does  it  cost  to  join  the  Alliance?" 
I  asked, 

"Two  dollar,"  replied  Hilda,  and  added,  with 
a  glance  at  my  shabby  suit,  "If  you  can  pay  a  little 
now  all  right,  or  you  can  pay  after  you  have 
worked." 

Just  then  the  'phone  rang  again.  "Yes,  sir, 
I  send  you  a  girl  right  away,"  and  turning  to  me 
Hilda  said: 

"You  go  to  —  North  Joliet  and  work  lunch." 
She  handed  me  the  official  card  of  the  Alliance 
with  the  address  of  my  lunch  job  written  on  the 
back. 

The  address  was  not  hard  to  find  and  I  was 
soon  busily  at  work.  I  was  assigned  three  tables, 
but  the  place  was  so  small  and  so  conveniently  ar- 
ranged that  the  work  was  not  hard  for  me.  It 
was  a  little  German  place  with  a  German  pro- 
prietor, German  food,  and  many  German  patrons. 
It  was  also  very  dirty.  In  this  it  was  like  the  other 
German  restaurants  I  met  later.  However,  it 
had  an  atmosphere  of  Gemiltlichkeit  characteris- 
tic of  German  restaurants. 

The  proprietor  greeted  the  patrons  personally 
as  they  came  into  the  restaurant  and  exchanged 
jokes  or  remarks  about  the  weather  with  them. 


62  Th^  JTom^n  Who  Waits 

After  they  were  seated,  he  went  about  from  one 
to  another  to  see  if  eadi  was  properly  served. 
Often  he  dianged  a  plate  with  the  remark,  "That 
order  is  cx>ld.  Let  me  give  you  some  that  is  hot" 
Now  and  then  he  laid  an  arm  afiectionately  across 
the  shoulders  of  a  guest.  Occasionally  he  walked 
to  the  door  arm  in  arm  with  a  patron,  stood  chat- 
tiiig  while  he  paid  his  dieck,  and  then  bade  him  a 
pcnonal  farcwclL  In  every  way  he  showed  a  per- 
sonal interest  in  all  who  patronized  his  little  place. 

Towards  the  end  of  the  lunch  hour,  two  Ger- 
man bo3rs,  evidently  frcHn  the  country,  came  in 
with  their  mother.  They  ordered  huge  quantities 
oi  wUurr  sckujtzrJ,  noodles,  rye  bread,  and  cofiee, 
They  spoke  German  to  one  another;  so  I  spoke 
to  them  in  German.  Tliey  beamed  with  pleasure 
and  ve  got  on  famously.  The  mother  entered 
into  the  spirit.  When  they  left  the  boys  shook 
hands  with  me  and  each  left  a  quarter  in  my 
pahn.  The  German  proprietor  was  pleased.  He 
offered  to  hire  me  *'steady''  on  the  spot. 

I  noticed  that  he  was  very  much  mterested  in 
ooe  of  the  waitresses,  a  Gretchen-faced  young 
gai  idio  seemed  to  share  with  him  the  respona- 
bifitj  of  the  management  of  the  little  place.  I 
wandered  if  she  was  his  daughter. 

At  the  end  of  the  famcfa  hour,  when  we  were^ 
not  bosy,  an  old  man  sat  down  at  a  table  and  this 
yoong  giii  tock.  his  order.     He  entered  into  con- 


I 


JVorking  Extra  6"^ 

versation  with  her  and,  after  a  time,  I  heard  him 
say, 

"You  can't  stuff  that  down  me,  there  isn't  a 
good  girl  working  in  a  restaurant  in  the  Loop." 

Gretchen  began  to  cry.  The  proprietor  over- 
heard the  conversation.  He  walked  behind  the 
table,  put  his  arm  around  the  girl,  and,  turning 
to  the  old  man,  said: 

"Ach,  Gott!  you  should  not  talk  to  her  like 
that;  she  was  good  once." 

I  went  to  the  Alliance  every  day  for  several 
weeks  and  Hilda  sent  me  out  every  day.  I  worked 
in  all  kinds  of  restaurants.  In  the  course  of 
time  I  acquired  considerable  knowledge  about  the 
w^ork  of  the  waitress.  As  I  became  "experienced," 
I  learned  what  the  term  meant. 

One  thing  which  I  might  have  known,  came 
home  to  me  with  the  force  of  a  discovery.  I 
learned  that  the  relation  between  the  waitress  and 
patron  Is  a  distinctly  personal  one.  It  is  a  good 
deal  more  Intimate  for  example  than  that  which 
exists  between  the  frigid  person  who  sits  as  a 
window  in  the  Randolph  Street  Railway  Station 
and  scornfully  hands  out  tickets  to  the  sheeplike 
public  that  pass  her  windows. 

Eating  In  a  restaurant  Is  not  exactly  a  sacra- 
ment, but  under  any  sort  of  human  conditions, 
it  is  something  of  a  ceremony,  a  ceremony  in 
which  the  waitress  plays  an  important  role.     The 


$4  The  Woman  Who  Waits 

existing  intimacy  is  greater  perhaps  if  the  patron 
is  a  man  than  if  she  is  a  woman,  though  in  the 
latter  case  the  intimacy  exists. 

The  men  who  patronize  the  cheaper  restaurants 
look  upon  the  waitress  as  a  social  equal  and  any 
man  who  comes  in  other  than  the  rush  hour  ex- 
pects a  little  visit  with  her.  These  conversations 
are  never  particularly  edifying,  but  as  a  means  of 
defining  the  cultural  status  of  such  places  they  are 
of  value. 

One  day  when  I  was  working  at  a  lunch  coun- 
ter on  South  Deering  Street,  a  weary  young  man 
came  in  and  seated  himself  on  a  stool  at  my 
counter. 

"Say,  kid,"  he  began  confidentially,  "I've  just ' 
had  an  awful  blowl" 

"How's  that?" 

"Why,"  he  continued,  "after  being  up  all  night 
and  making  a  night  of  it,  I  woke  up  this  morning 
to  find  that  my  best  girl  had  taken  the  big  leap 
and  married  another  fellow.  i\nd,  girlie,  I  want 
a  pot  of  coffee,  a  big  pot  of  coffee,  and  two  hand- 
picked  eggs,  boiled  four  minutes,  and  some  thin 
toast.  I'm  willing  to  pay  for  them  just  so  they're 
the  real  thing." 

I  chirruped  something  intended  to  be  cheery. 
He  responded  with  "You  bet!  and  girlie  you 
bring  me  that  pot  of  coffee  right  now." 


Working  Extra  6^ 

I  asked  one  of  the  other  girls  where  they  kept 
the  pots  of  coffee. 

"Pot  of  coffee  I  Gee  I"  she  said,  "he  must  be 
a  swell  guy.  We  don't  have  that  kind  around 
here  very  often.     Get  a  tea  pot  and  fill  it  up." 

I  did  so  and  then  I  mentioned  the  hand-picked 
eggs  boiled  four  minutes. 

"Say,  you  tell  him  these  are  A  No.  i  specials 
right  from  under  the  hen,"  said  the  cook,  and 
put  them  in  to  boil. 

The  cook's  remarks  in  regard  to  those  eggs 
were,  as  usual,  ironical.  Besides  it  occurred  to 
me  that  eggs  hard  boiled  were  no  real  balm  for 
broken  hearts.  I  said  to  the  young  man,  "These 
eggs  are  guaranteed  A  No,  i  specials  by  the  cook 
but  not  by  me." 

"That's  right,  kid,"  he  said  laughing,  "play 
safe,"  and  when  he  left  he  put  a  dime  on  the  coun- 
ter for  me. 

Another  day  two  Yellow  Cab  drivers  sat  at 
my  station  in  an  "eat  quick"  restaurant.  They 
were  two  young  boys,  so  I  began  pleasantly, 

"Well,  boys,  what'll  you  have?" 

"What  you  got?" 

"Just  everything." 

"Well,  give  us  calves'  brains  and  scrambled 
eggs  on  toast  twice,  and  be  quick,  girlie,  we  been 
up  all  night  and  we're  hungry." 


66  The  Woman  Who  Waits 

I  hurried  their  orders  back  to  the  kitchen. 

"On  the  fire,  kid,"  said  the  cook,  "pick  'em  up 
later." 

I  returned  to  the  counter  and  gave  the  boys 
their  bread  and  butter.  "What  kept  you  up  all 
night?"  I  ventured. 

"Arrested,"  replied  one,  "spent  the  night  in 
the  Harrison  station." 

A  little  later  he  explained.  He  said,  "The 
Marquette  Hotel  is  tryin'  to  run  its  own  cabs 
and  it  won't  let  a  Yellow  Cab  in  there,  not  even 
if  we  are  called.  So  last  night  us  two  got  into  a 
fight,  and  we  got  arrested. 

"That  was  too  bad,"  I  said,  because  I  could 
not  think  of  anything  else  to  say. 

"Naw,"  said  the  cabby,  "it  was  a  lot  of  fun. 
We  got  fined  a  hundred  and  costs  but  the  rom- 
pany  paid  it.     They  stand  by  us  all  right." 

"Lots  of  excitement  down  in  that  Harrison 
station.  Two  girls  was  arrested  yesterday  for 
stealin'  aigrettes  at  Usher  Lane's.  They  had 
nine  or  ten  of  them  stuck  in  under  their  hats. 
What  do  you  know  about  that?" 

"And  there  was  a  married  woman  that  stole 
some  furs,  sable  furs,"  supplemented  the  other 
cabby,  "and  the  judge  sent  her  up,  and  she  has 
two  little  kids  at  home." 

"That  was  tough,"  said  the  first  cabby.  "She 
bawled  somethin'  awful,  but  that  old  judge  down 


Working  Extra  67 

there,  sent  her  up  in  spite  of  her  havin'  them 
kids.  You  know  that  ain't  right.  She  was  dressed 
awful  poor  and  she  said  her  heart  was  set  on 
havin'  them  furs.  Queer  how  women  like  them 
things." 

"Now  them  two  young  girls,"  he  added,  "they 
was  only  about  sixteen  and  they  was  dressed  awful 
stylish  and  they  tried  to  act  smart.  They  was 
just  as  bold!  They  got  ninety  days  and  I  was 
glad  of  it." 

"Why,  if  they  were  so  young?" 

"Oh,  say,  if  you  knew  what  I  knew  about  girls 
in  this  burg!" 

I  registered  Interest. 

"There  ain't  no  decent  girls  here,"  he  con- 
tinued. 

"You  surely  can't  mean  that?" 

"Yes,  I  do.  I  have  experience  with  all  kinds 
them  that's  sports  and  them  whose  folks  is  re- 
spectable, and  they're  all  alike.  All  they  want  you 
to  do  is  to  spend  money  on  'em.  If  you'll  take 
'em  cabarayin'  and  spend  fifty  dollars  on  'em,  you 
can  have  about  any  girl  around,  I  know,  'cause 
I've  done  it." 

I  protested  mildly,  in  defense  of  my  sex. 

"Well,  they're  some,  but  they're  darn  scarce," 
said  the  cabby.  "The  girls  here  is  the  wisest 
bunch.  A  fellow  ain't  got  no  chance  against 
em. 


J 


68  The  Woman  Who  Waits 

A  restaurant  is  not  just  the  place  I  would 
choose  to  discuss  the  sex  problem.  But  I  was 
interested.  I  suggested  that  men  were  partly  to 
blame. 

"No  they  ain't.  A  girl  has  to  show  she's 
willin'.  There  ain't  no  fellow  that  a  decent  girl 
can't  stop  if  she  wants  to.  She's  got  the  thing 
right  in  her  hands." 

"I  got  acquainted  with  a  girl  from  a  good  fam- 
ily once,"  he  continued,  "and  she  started  a  flirta- 
tion with  me,  but  I  knew  she  was  respectable  and 
I  couldn't  marry  her  and  I  wouldn't  go  with  her 
for  no  other  purpose,  so  I  turned  her  down.  She 
was  a  pretty  girl,  too,  and  I  liked  her.  Say,  she 
started  the  same  thing  with  another  fellow,  and 
in  three  months  he  made  a  bum  of  her.  Awl  it 
makes  you  sick!  I  got  five  sisters  and  they  ain't 
never  comin'   here." 

These  children  gaVe  me  ten  cents  as  they  went 
out. 

"You  can't  get  along  in  any  kind  of  restaurant," 
said  a  girl  to  me,  "unless  you  jolly  the  customers." 

And  certainly  the  customers  look  for  the  jolly. 
Many  times  it  is  simply  friendly  and  innocent  but 
quite  as  often  the  man  starts  deliberately  to  ex- 
plore. He  had,  perhaps,  merely  an  intellectual 
interest.  But  few  men,  however,  are  looking  for 
purely  platonic  adventures. 

If  the  waitress  is  too  busy  for  jollying,  the  at- 


Working  Extra  69 

titude  of  the  patron  is  quite  different.  During 
the  rush  hour  at  a  counter  in  a  hash  house,  the 
waitress  might  as  well  be  a  machine  as  a  human 
being  for  all  the  consideration  she  gets  from 
the  men  she  waits  on.  The  busier  she  is,  the 
greater  her  difficulties,  the  more  impatient  and 
clamorous  become  the  men.  And  it  is  always  at 
the  noon  hour  that  the  coffee  urn  runs  dry, 
that  there  is  no  silver  in  the  drawer,  and  no 
napkins  are  to  be  found.  The  man  is  hungry, 
the  way  to  his  heart  is  through  his  stomach, 
and  the  waitress  cannot  take  that  way  quickly 
enough;  so  he  vents  all  his  accumulated  wrath 
upon  her.  The  final  hardship  is  that  he  neglects 
to  leave  a  tip.  It  is  a  well-known  fact  that  the 
waitress  always  makes  her  best  tips  on  the  slow 
days  and  in  the  slow  hours.  The  patrons' 
lack  of  sympathy  is  one  of  the  hardest  things  that 
the  waitress  has  to  bear. 


CHAPTER  VI 

A  SUPPER  GIRL 

Up  to  this  time  I  had  worked  as  a  waitress  in 
about  fifteen  different  restaurants,  lunch  coun- 
ters, tea  rooms,  cafes,  employees'  lunch  rooms  and 
department  store  lunch  rooms.  I  had  learned  to 
throw  food  on  the  counter  at  some  places  like  the 
Adams  Lunch  at  i8i  West  Adams  Street,  which 
are  called  "dumps"  in  the  waitress  world;  to  serve 
it  with  as  great  dispatch  but  with  a  little  more 
art,  at  hash  houses  like  White  and  McCreary's  at 
227  South  Lincoln  Avenue,  and  to  be  gentle  and 
refined  in  the  service  which  I  gave  to  the  members 
of  the  College  Club  in  the  Chandler  Building. 
I  had  learned  that  I  need  never  expect  a  tip  from 
the  women  who,  with  bundles  and  babies,  eat  in 
the  lunch  room  at  Worthley's  nor  from  the  pa- 
trons of  the  employees'  lunch  room  at  the  Amer- 
ican Heat  and  Light  Company,  nor  from  the 
habitues  of  the  Park  Tea  Room,  the  rendezvous 
of  the  oiiice  woman. 

Already  I  was  learning  a  great  deal  about  the 
nature  of  woman  and  a  great  deal  about  Hfe.     I 

70 


A  Supper  Girl  71 

knew  by  this  time,  in  a  general  way,  about  fifty 
waitresses.  A  number  of  those  I  knew  intimately. 
I  knew  Evelyn,  who  stayed  decent  because  she  had 
a  little  girl,  and  it  was  Evelyn  who  loaned  me 
eight  cents  for  a  lunch  which  we  bought  and  ate  at 
the  Alliance  one  day  when  there  were  not  enough 
jobs  to  go  around  and  I  had  been  caught  down- 
town with  only  the  nickel  for  my  return  carfare 
in  my  purse.  I  had  made  the  acquaintance  of 
Dottie,  who  was  now  married  and  decent,  al- 
though she  told  me  that  when  she  needed  a  pair 
of  shoes  she  had  found  it  easy  to  "earn"  them  in 
the  way  that  other  girls  did.  Then  there  was  Lucy 
who  was  old  and  deaf  and  stout,  and  who  half  the 
time  was  out  of  work,  and  Minnie,  whose  hus- 
band kept  a  saloon  on  the  West  Side,  and  who 
worked  for  companionship  and  on  occasion  hired 
a  taxicab  to  come  to  the  Alliance,  and  Selma,  who 
was  chairman  at  all  the  Alliance  meetings,  ore- 
siding  like  an  I.W.W.,  and  commanding  by  sheer 
force  of  personality  and  loudness  of  voice,  with 
her,  "My  God,  girls,  listen  to  what  I'm  say- 
ing." 

I  learned  also  to  know  men:  the  gay  old  man 
who  always  paid  the  waitress  silly  compliments; 
the  grouchy,  puffy,  youngish  fellow  who  clamored 
impatiently  for  food,  and  the  pathetic,  middle- 
aged  clerk  whose  salary  of  fifteen  dollars  per 
week  condemned  him  to  a  hopeless  daily  struggle 


72  The  Woman  Who  Waits 

to  satisfy  a  man's  appetite  and  still  leave  a  margin 
for  clothes  and  room  rent.  Among  other  familiar 
figures  were  the  man  with  a  diamond  ring  who 
radiated  an  odor  of  strong  tobacco,  the  boy  with 
the  restless  shamefaced  interest  in  woman  as 
represented  by  the  waitress  in  her  white  apron, 
and  the  father  of  a  family  who  gratified  a  roving 
disposition  for  adventure  by  coquettish  little  jokes 
with  the  girl  who  served  him. 

I  felt  by  this  time  that  I  knew  a  great  deal 
about  the  Loop  restaurants  and  about  the  Loop 
life.  I  began  to  be  curious  about  the  restaurants 
in  other  parts  of  the  city.  I  determined  to  get 
my  next  job  in  some  neighborhood  outside  the 
Loop.  Therefore,  one  afternoon  at  the  Alliance, 
when  someone  asked,  "Who  wants  a  supper  job 
at  the  Hayden  Square  .Tea  Room?"  I  immediately 
became  interested. 

"I  worked  there  last  nite,"  continued  the  girl 
who  had  spoken,  "but  I  live  North  and  it's  too 
far  for  me,  so  I'm  going  to  give  it  up." 

"I  worked  there  last  summer,"  said  another 
girl,  "it's  a  hard  place  to  work,  so  many  damn 
steps  to  go  up  and  down  and  the  fellow  that  runs 
it  never  wants  you  to  do  the  same  thing  two  days 
in  succession,  but  the  money's  good  and  the  people 
are  nice  to  wait  on." 

I  volunteered  the  information  that  I  lived 
South. 


A  Slipper  Girl  73 

"It's  the  job  for  you,  then,"  said  the  girl. 
"Stop  in  on  your  way  home;  I'm  sure  he'll  take 
you.     He  needs  a  girl  awful  bad." 

I  went  to  work  that  evening  at  the  Hayden 
Square  Tea  Room  as  a  supper  girl,  that  is  from 
five  to  eight.  I  worked  there  for  four  weeks 
every  day  including  Sunday  and  I  received  in 
wages  seventy-five  cents  per  day  or  $5.25  in 
wages  per  week  for  three  hours'  work  per  day. 
On  Sundays  I  worked  from  four  in  the  afternoon 
until  midnight  because  an  extra  girl  was  always 
needed  to  handle  the  extra  Sunday  night  business. 
For  this  extra  time  I  received  another  seventy- 
five  cents,  thus  bringing  my  wages  for  the  week 
to  $6.25. 

I  found  that  the  "money"  was  indeed  good  and 
particularly  good  on  Sundays.  The  first  week  I 
earned  in  tips  and  wages,  $8.75,  the  second 
$11.90,  the  third  $11.30,  and  the  fourth  $11.40, 
making  the  total  for  four  weeks'  work  $43.35. 
And  this  job,  except  on  Sundays,  required  only 
three  hours  per  day.  Besides  my  wages  and  tips, 
I  received  each  night  an  excellent  dinner  made  up 
of  anything  I  wished  to  choose  from  the  bill  of 
fare,  and  I  could  have  all  that  I  wanted. 

Between  the  patron  of  the  tea  room  and  the 
waitress,  the  social  gulf  is  wider  than  it  is  in 
the  cheaper  restaurants.  This  differs  in  degree 
in  the  Loop  tea  room  and  the  neighborhood  tea 


74  The  JVoman  Who  Waits 

room.  For  example,  the  relation  between  patron 
and  waitress  was  much  freer  at  Foyle's  than  at 
the  Hayden  Square,  the  reason  being  that  the  for- 
mer is  downtown,  while  the  latter  is  a  neighbor- 
hood gathering-place. 

At  the  Hayden  Square,  however,  the  relation 
was  extremely  friendly  and  not  at  all  suggestive. 
The  patrons  here  preferred  courtsy  to  swiftness 
and  in  such  a  place  a  really  nice  girl  could  do 
very  well.  There  were  half  a  dozen  pleasant  old 
gentlemen  who  liked  green  tea  with  whom  I  be- 
came very  friendly  indeed,  and  there  was  a  young 
man  with  horn-rimmed  spectacles  and  an  unusually 
sweet  smile  who  came  to  dinner  every  night  with 
his  wife  and  baby  and  who  said  to  me,  "I  wish  that 
you  could  wait  on  us  always." 

A  certain  doctor  and  his  wife  were  pleased  to 
have  me  wait  on  them.  He  used  to  joke  pleas- 
antly with  me  and  she  was  very  curious  about  me 
although  too  well-bred  to  ask  any  direct  ques- 
tions. In  fact  I  built  up  a  nice  little  clientele  in 
the  four  weeks  that  I  worked  at  the  Hayden 
Square.  Three  young  Jewish  men  were  particu- 
lar favorites  with  all  of  the  waitresses  both  be- 
cause of  their  agreeable  manners  and  their  lib- 
eral tips.  All  the  Jews  who  came  to  the  Hayden 
Square  were  especially  courteous  to  the  waitress. 

One  evening  a  woman  became  angry  with  me 
because  I  kept  her  waiting.    I  told  her  that  I  was 


A  Supper  Girl  75 

sorry  and  explained  that  two  of  our  waitresses 
were  sick,  but  she  received  my  apology  ungra- 
ciously and  muttered  something  about  "that  being 
no  excuse."  She  left  me  no  tip  and,  although  I 
waited  on  her  several  times  after  that  and  gave 
her  excellent  service,  she  never  gave  me  a  tip. 
She  did  not  fail  to  tip  the  other  waitresses.  For 
the  most  part  the  people  that  patronize  a  place 
like  the  Hayden  Square  are  well  bred  and  no  one 
has  a  better  chance  of  judging  this  than  the 
waitress.  When  I  met  with  discourtesy  from  any 
one  it  was  from  a  woman. 

There  were  some  curious  types  at  the  Hayden 
Square.  There  was  an  unmarried  woman  about 
thirty-five  who  was  staying  at  the  hotel  and  who 
was  in  love  with  the  soda-fountain  man.  He  did 
not  respond,  although  he  had  to  be  courteous. 
She  used  to  come  down  In  the  afternoons  and  sit 
talking  to  him.  The  waitresses  hugely  enjoyed 
all  this,  but  It  was  really  pathetic.  Another  used 
to  come  when  we  were  not  busy,  order  some  tea, 
and  carry  on  a  long  monologue  about  things  that 
happened  In  the  hotel.  It  was  harmless  gossip 
and  hard  to  follow,  but  she  did  not  seem  to  need 
any  response  from  us,  though  apparently  we  were 
her  audience.  Several  women  who  came  for 
afternoon  tea  would  converse  in  loud  tones  about 
"my  housekeeper,"  "my  car,"  and  "my  chauf- 
feur," all  with  the  obvious  intention  of  Impressing 


76  The  JVoman  Who  Walts 

the  waitresses.  I  often  wished  that  they  could 
have  heard  the  diagnosis  of  Letty,  our  Irish  girl. 

who  would  say:     "The  damn  they  haven't 

got  a  car!  Their  husbands  are  traveling  men 
and  they  do  their  own  work  just  like  we  do." 

The  waitresses  who  worked  here  were  pretty. 
They  were  even  stylish.  They  began  at  once  to 
take  an  interest  in  me,  and  to  make  suggestions 
about  the  improvement  of  my  appearance. 

"Why  don't  you  wear  shorter  skirts,  Fannie?" 
asked  Mary,  and  added,  "long  skirts  make  a  girl 
look  like  an  old  woman." 

"If  you  would  'dip'  your  hair  a  little  in  the 
front,  Fannie,  you'd  be  a  real  good  looking  girl," 
suggested  Louise. 

"Don't  you  change  your  hair,  Fannie,"  inter- 
posed Letty,    And  to  the  others,  she  said. 

"Fannie's  hair  is  all  right.  Lots  of  the  swells 
who  come  in  here  wear  their  hair  that  plain  way. 
I  think  it  looks  nice.  That's  the  way  I'd  do 
mine  only  it's  all  broke  off  with  the  curling  iron." 

Letty  was  the  best  waitress  we  had  and  the 
most  popular  both  with  the  patrons  and  with  the 
other  girls.  She  said  that  she  had  run  away  from 
home  when  she  was  seventeen  and  that  at  first 
she  had  done  office  work  but  that  there  was  no 
money  in  It,  so  she  had  quit  and  "gone  to  hashin'." 
She  had  worked  all  over  the  Loop.  A  year  be- 
fore I  met  her,  she  had  married.     She  said  that 


A  Supper  Girl  77 

her  husband  was  from  a  good  family,  but  that 
he  had  run  away  from  home  when  a  small  boy. 

"He  lived  with  women  from  the  time  he  was 
seventeen,"  said  she,  "and  they  supported  him. 
But  since  we've  been  married,  he's  had  a  steady 
job.  He  gets  twenty-five  a  week  now  and  he's 
the  grandest  man  and  so  good  to  me !  And  the 
thing  I  like  best  about  him,  Fannie,  is  that  the 
drunker  he  gets,  the  more  of  a  gentleman  he  is. 
He  can  be  as  drunk  as  a  fool,  but  he's  always 
a  gentleman,'" 

Letty  and  her  husband  were  devotees  of  the 
cabaret.  It  was  nothing  for  them,  so  she  said, 
to  spend  five  or  ten  dollars  in  an  afternoon  or 
evening  on  eating  and  drinking  in  these  places. 
This  was  their  ideal  of  perfect  enjoyment.  Letty 
would  often  come  to  work  at  five  o'clock  much 
the  worse  for  drink  and  at  these  times  her  temper 
was  frightful.  At  times  she  was  in  a  state  bor- 
dering on  delirium  tremens.  She  would  scream 
and  clutch  the  hands  of  one  of  the  girls  and  beg 
her  to  hold  tight,  crying  pitifully. 

"I  am  going  crazy;  oh,  I  know  that  I  am  going 
crazy!" 

And  Mary,  one  of  the  other  girls,  exchanged 
wise  glances  with  me  and  said: 

"Letty  and  her  husband  ain't  got  no  sense. 
Too  much  drives  you  nuts." 

One  night  in  the  kitchen,  Letty  smashed  a  plat- 


78  The  JVoman  Who  Waits 

ter  over  the  head  of  one  of  the  negroes  and  we 
always  had  a  feeling  that  she  might  throw  a 
glass  of  water  in  the  face  of  any  one  of  us  on  the 
slightest  provocation. 

Letty  and  IVlary  quarreled  constantly  although 
they  were  very  fond  of  each  other.  These  quar- 
rels were  comedy,  low  comedy.  Both  girls  were 
dishonorable  and  never  hesitated  to  tell  lies  about 
each  other.  Mary  would  insist  that  a  certain  tray 
of  dirty  dishes  belonged  to  Letty  and  Letty  would 
insist  that  it  belonged  to  Mary.  They  played  all 
sorts  of  mean  little  tricks  on  each  other.  Letty 
carried  out  as  few  dirty  dishes  as  possible.  She 
had  a  clever  way  of  slipping  a  few  on  to  this 
girl's  tray  and  a  few  on  to  that  girl's  tray  until 
almost  none  were  left  for  her.  The  rest  of  us 
"stood"  for  this  quite  amiably,  but  when  It  was 
Mary's  turn,  there  was  always  a  battle. 

A  certain  family  group,  consisting  of  father, 
mother,  two  sons  and  a  daughter,  used  to  come  to 
the  Hayden  Square  almost  every  night.  None  of 
the  girls  wanted  to  wait  on  them  for  as  they  said, 
"It  takes  all  night  and  they  are  only  good  for 
a  quarter  or  maybe  fifteen  cents."  Mary  was 
little  and  quick  and  when  she  saw  them  coming, 
she  would  escape  into  the  kitchen  and  remain  hid- 
den behind  the  tall  racks  of  dishes,  whispering 
gleefully  to  the  rest  of  us  as  we  passed  by, 


A  Supper  Girl  79 

"Gee,  Letty  got  the  'family'  tonight.  I  ducked 
when  I  saw  them  coming!" 

The  girls  here  watched  for  the  tip  and  were  in- 
dignant if  they  did  not  receive  one  from  every 
person  served.  It  made  Letty  furious  to  have 
a  patron  "stick  her  up"  and  Louise  used  to  say,  "If 
they  can't  afford  to  tip,  they  have  no  business  eat- 
ing in  a  place  like  this." 

And  while  I  was  a  waitress,  I  found  myself 
agreeing  with  Louise. 

There  was  in  this  group  no  code  of  "honor 
among  thieves."  I  often  lost  a  tip  that  was  mine 
because  the  patron  would  hide  it  among  the  dishes. 
If  another  girl  cleared  that  table,  she  took  the  tip. 
There  were  many  quarrels  about  this  among  the 
girls  although  each  knew  that  she  would  do  the 
same  thing  when  the  opportunity  offered. 

The  kitchen  of  the  Hayden  Square  was  to  all 
appearances  clean.  But  at  night  It  was  infested 
with  rats.  Great  fat,  gray  rats,  as  big  as  kit- 
tens used  to  slink  across  the  tables  and  racks,  or 
stand  on  their  hind  legs  on  the  floor  and  blink  at 
the  waitresses  as  they  hurried  by  with  their  trays 
of  dirty  dishes,  or  lurk  In  the  sinks  waiting  for  the 
scraps  of  food  left  on  the  plates.  Mother  rats, 
with  whole  families  of  babies,  would  forage 
around  among  the  discarded  plates  and  saucers 
and   squeak   and   squeal   with   pleasure   when   a 


8o  The  Woman  Who  Waits 

choice  morsel  was  discovered.  The  waitresses 
and  the  kitchen  men  used  to  make  coarse  jokes 
about  these  rats  in  which  the  ever-present  sex 
interest  was  the  important  factor. 

In  fact  the  entire  conversation  centered  about 
this  interest.  We  waitresses  used  to  eat  our  din- 
ner in  a  little  windowless  closet  of  a  room  which 
we  called  the  "boudoir"  and  in  the  half  hour 
allotted  for  the  purpose,  Mary  and  Letty  talked 
freely  of  the  intimate  life  which  they  had  with 
their  husbands,  and  the  unmarried  girls,  with  but 
little  attempt  at  concealment,  that  which  they  had 
with  their  lovers. 

In  the  kitchen  the  same  atmosphere  prevailed. 
A  man  could  not  cut  a  piece  of  meat  for  a  girl 
without  making  a  filthy  joke  about  It  or  making  a 
suggestive  movement  towards  her.  There  was 
never  any  open  violation  of  the  proprieties  but 
always  the  suggestive  talk  and  behavior.  After- 
wards in  the  "boudoir"  each  girl  would  retail 
what  the  men  had  said  to  her.  They  enjoyed 
these  things,  in  fact  they  felt  complimented  by 
them.  After  hearing  these  women  talk,  I  realized 
for  the  first  time,  how  fragile  a  thing  are  the  re- 
finements of  life. 

The  waitress  had  brought  with  her  into  the 
home  atmosphere  of  the  Hayden  Square  the  man- 
ners of  the  downtown  restaurant.  The  sort  of 
jokes  that  are  current  in  the  kitchen  of  a  restau- 


A  Supper  Girl  8i 

rant,  as,  of  course,  might  be  expected,  are  not 
refined.  They  are  broad  Rabelaisian,  dirty.  In 
the  easy  familiar  contact  with  men,  these  girls 
had  acquired  in  regard  to  matters  of  sex  (in 
which,  like  most  women,  they  were  mainly  inter- 
ested) the  incredible  candor  of  men. 


CHAPTER  VII 

A  TEA  ROOM  FOR  MEN 

I  DID  not  get  my  job  at  Usher  Lane's  through 
the  Alliance,  because  Usher  Lane  does  not  employ 
Alliance  or  Union  help.  I  answered  an  adver- 
tisement for  "Long  and  Short-Hour  Serving 
Maids,"  which  appeared  one  morning  in  the 
Tribune.  When  I  applied  at  the  Men's  Grill  on 
the  sixth  floor  of  Usher  Lane's,  the  manager  (  let 
us  call  her  Mrs.  Chesney)   said: 

"Come  tomorrow  morning  ready  for  work. 
Your  hours  will  be  from  eight-thirty  to  five-fif- 
teen." 

A  little  later  she  asked,  "What  is  your  name 
and  where  do  you  live?" 

I  gave  an  address  on  Thirty-second  Street. 

"That  is  in  my  neighborhood,"  said  Mrs.  Ches- 
ney pleasantly. 

"Indeed!"  said  I  politely,  "and  w'here  do  you 
live?" 

She  told  me.  She  lived  in  the  same  apart- 
ment building  that  I  lived  in  myself. 

I   did   some   quick  thinking   and   decided   that 

So 


A   Tea  Room  for  Men  '     83 

sjnce  we  had  lived  there  for  a  year  without  hav- 
ing seen  each  other,  we  should  probably  live 
there  several  more  without  meeting. 

When  I  reported  for  work  the  next  morning, 
Mrs.  Chesney  was  waiting  for  me  at  her  desk 
and  in  front  of  her  was  a  large  application  blank. 

"I'll  write  this  for  you,  Mrs.  Robinson,  if  you 
will  answer  some  questions,"  said  she.  I  noted 
that  she  did  not  call  me  "Fannie"  as  they  had 
done  in  all  the  other  places  where  I  had  worked. 

She  wrote  down  rapidly  my  name,  address,  and 
phone  number,  a  list  of  the  places  where  I  had 
worked  previously,  together  with  the  length  of 
time  spent  at  each  place,  and  then  in  conclusion 
demanded  the  names  of  two  persons  as  refer- 
ences.    I  was  utterly  unprepared  for  this. 

"References!"  I  cried  in  dismay,  "no  one  ever 
before  asked  me  for  references." 

"Usher  Lane  must  have  them  from  every  em- 
ployee," said  she. 

I  hesitated,  looking  hopelessly  confused. 

"It  was  not  until  seven  years  ago  that  I  took 
a  business  position,"  said  she,  and  added  kindly, 

"We  ought  not  to  be  ashamed  of  honest  work, 
Mrs.  Robinson;  we  can  dignify  our  labor  by  the 
manner  of  our  performance.  Let  me  give  you 
a  little  advice;  even  though  you  may  not  have 
had  to  work  for  your  living  always,  do  not  let  the 
girls  know  that  it  Is  new  to  you.     If  they  think 


84  The  Woman  Who  Waits 

that  you  feel  above  them,  you  will  not  get  on 
well." 

I  began  to  see  that  Mrs.  Chesney  thought  that 
I  belonged  to  the  class  of  "sheltered"  woman 
who,  when  overtaken  by  a  sudden  reversal  of 
fortune,  finding  herself  untrained  turns  to  what- 
ever seems  most  expedient  at  the  moment. 

"I  think  you  will  like  it  here,"  she  went  on; 
"we  try  to  make  working  conditions  pleasant  for 
the  girls.  There  are  many  advantages  here  that 
are  not  afforded  elsewhere.  We  give  each  em- 
ployee a  shopping  card  which  entitles  her  to  a 
liberal  discount  on  all  purchases  and  we  furnish 
free  medical  care  during  illness.  When  you  have 
been  with  us  six  months,  we  give  you  one  week's 
vacation  with  pay,  and  when  you  have  been  with 
us  a  year,  we  give  you  a  two  weeks'  vacation 
with  pay.  We  aim  to  keep  our  girls.  Miss 
Clark,  one  of  our  long  hour  girls,  has  been  with 
us  for  fifteen  years  and  you  will  find  that  most 
of  our  girls  have  been  with  us  two  and  three 
years.  We  like  the  kind  of  girl  who  is  willing 
to  remain  In  a  place  a  long  time.  You  are  the 
type  of  young  woman  that  Usher  Lane  likes  to 
get  and  likes  to  keep.  If  there  is  any  way  that 
I  can  help  you,  never  hesitate  to  come  to  my 
desk  and  speak  to  me." 

She  dropped  her  r's  and  her  accent  showed 


A   Tea  Room  for  Men  85 

that  she  had  come  from  the  neighborhood  of  Bos> 
ton  but  her  voice  was  utterly  devoid  of  any  sug- 
gestion of  affectation. 

"Thank  you,"  I  said  gratefully  to  the  kindly, 
gentle,  little  woman,  and  I  felt  guilty  and  un- 
comfortable with  the  knowledge  of  my  real  pur- 
pose in  my  mind.  With  her  New  England 
standards  of  honor  and  honesty,  I  knew  that  she 
would  not  approve  of  me. 

When  she  had  taken  down  my  references,  Mrs. 
Chesney  turned  me  over  to  a  nice  plain  girl 
named  Ada,  who  conducted  me  to  the  kitchen  and 
showed  me  how  to  pick  up  my  breakfast. 

"We  are  allowed  only  rolls  and  coffee,"  said 
she,  "or  toast  if  we  make  It  ourselves." 

The  kitchen  was  a  long  narrow  room.  Against 
the  wall  at  the  back  were  machines  for  washing 
china,  glasses,  and  silver.  In  front  of  these  were 
great  racks  where  the  clean  dishes  could  be 
placed.  In  the  center  along  the  wall  were  refrig- 
erators where  the  milk,  cream,  and  butter  were 
kept  and  also  the  vegetables  and  all  materials  for 
making  salads.  In  front  of  these  refrigerators 
were  racks  where  the  cream  and  butter,  and  the 
salads  after  they  were  made,  could  be  placed 
ready  for  the  waitresses  to  pick  up  as  they  came 
through.  Next  In  order  were  the  baking  ovens 
and  behind  these  stood  women  rolling  out  cookies 


S6  The  Woman  Who  Watts 

or  beating  up  cakes  and  muffins.  At  one  end 
were  huge  ranges  in  front  of  which  the  meat 
and  vegetable  cooks  were  working. 

All  along  the  opposite  wall  were  narrow  cup- 
boards with  sliding  doors  where  the  china  and 
glassware  were  kept.  On  this  side  also  a  nar- 
row niche  was  reserved  for  the  coffee  urn. 
Everything  was  exquisitely  clean  and  the  women 
working  there  in  blue  gingham  dresses  and  white 
caps  and  aprons  looked  most  attractive.  All  at 
once  I  felt  hungry.  I  hastened  to  pick  up  my 
breakfast  of  bran  muffins  (delicious  ones  that 
you  can  get  nowhere  except  at  Lane's)  and  coffee 
and,  seated  on  a  big  box  near  a  warming  oven, 
I  ate  it  with  relish. 

After  breakfast  I  helped  Ada  to  wash  buf- 
fets and  tables  until  ten  o'clock  when  we  went  to 
another  kitchen  on  the  seventh  floor  to  pick 
chicken  from  bones.  This  was  a  smaller  kitchen 
and  only  three  women  were  working  there.  One 
was  making  pastry,  another  was  preparing  vege- 
tables and  mixing  white  sauce  in  a  huge  machine 
designed  for  that  purpose,  and  a  third  was  mash- 
ing potatoes  in  a  big  mashing  machine. 

Ada  and  I  were  joined  at  the  chicken  picking 
by  two  other  girls,  Adelaide  and  Kathleen.  The 
girls  began  to  gossip  together.  Adelaide  was  a 
widow  but  said  that  nothing  could  induce  her  to 


A   Tea  Room  for  Men  87 

marry  again  because  as  soon  as  a  woman  married 
a  man  she  lost  him,  but,  if  she  were  not  married 
she  could  keep  half  a  dozen  on  the  string.  She 
resembled  my  conception  of  a  "madame"  of  a 
house  of  prostitution. 

Kathleen  was  a  pretty  Irish  girl  with  the  Crans- 
parent  white  skin  and  delicately  colored  cheeks 
that  so  often  characterize  the  Irish  maiden.  She 
began  a  friendly  conversation  with  me.  She  said 
that  she  was  engaged  to  a  young  Irishman  who 
had  been  In  America  the  same  length  of  time 
that  she  had,  that  they  had  expected  to  be  married 
In  June  but  she  had  begged  off  for  another  year 
because  they  could  not  yet  afford  marriage. 

"If  I  had  to  go  on  working,  I  couldn't  keep 
my  flat  as  it  ought  to  be  kept,"  said  Kathleen. 
"And  anyway,"  she  added,  "I  don't  know  that 
I  could  stand  a  man  around  every  day  just  yet. 
Now  I  see  him  only  Wednesdays  and  Sundays, 
and  that  Is  very  nice.  If  I  see  a  man  more  than 
twice  a  week,  I  get  sick  of  him." 

Just  here  the  pastry  cook  took  about  a  dozen 
apple  pies  out  of  the  oven  and  set  them  out  on 
racks  to  cool.  The  aroma  from  them  filled  the 
air  deliciously.  We  sat  silent  for  a  moment  ab- 
sorbing the  delightful  odor. 

"You  ought  to  get  rich  making  those  pies, 
Martha,"  said  some  one. 


88  The  Woman  Who  Waits 

"Well,  ain't  I  one  of  Usher  Lane's  high  sala- 
ried employees?"  remarked  Martha  drily,  as  she 
went  on  rolling  crusts. 

"Perhaps  when  I  am  older,"  continued  Kath- 
leen, "and  need  a  home,  I  will  feel  differently 
about  it.  But  while  I  am  young,  I  like  to  be  free. 
It's  fun  to  doll  up  for  a  man  twice  a  week;  any 
girl  enjoys  dolling  up  that  often,  but  to  have  one 
around  all  the  time  is  no  fun." 

"What  do  you  do  the  nights  you  are  not  with 
him?"  I  asked. 

"I  mend  my  stockings  and  do  my  laundry  work 
and  have  a  quiet  time  at  home.  I  let  him  have 
Saturday  night  to  take  out  some  other  girl.  I 
think  it  is  only  fair  to  a  man  to  let  him  see  other 
girls  once  in  a  while." 

"Time  to  dress,  girls  1"  called  a  voice  outside 
the  kitchen  door. 

We  hurried  to  the  dressing  room.  There  a 
maid  handed  us  each  a  clean  apron,  clean  collar 
and  cuffs,  and  a  perky  little  hair  bow  of  white 
muslin.  The  dressing  room  was  large,  com- 
fortable, and  very  clean.  We  dressed  carefully. 
The  rouge,  the  powder,  and  the  lip  stick  were  in 
evidence  here  just  as  they  had  been  in  other  dress- 
ing rooms  but  there  were  fewer  oaths  and  less 
filthy  language.  The  percentage  of  plain,  de- 
cent girls  seemed  greater  than  at  other  places 
where  I  had  worked. 


A   Tea  Room  for  Men  89 

When  we  were  dressed,  we  returned  to  the  grill 
room  where  we  assisted  the  short  hour  girls, 
who  work  from  elev^en  until  half  past  two,  to  set 
the  tables.  There  were  about  sixty-five  girls  al- 
together and  of  this  number  two-thirds  were  short 
hour  girls,  for  but  one  meal  Is  served  here. 

This  grill  room  is  furnished  with  dark,  mas- 
sive furniture  upholstered  in  leather;  heavy 
draperies  of  pompous  velvet  shut  out  any  ray  of 
light  that  might  force  Its  way  in  If  It  happened 
to  be  a  fair  day  in  the  Loop,  and  lights  are  low 
or  carefully  shaded.  A  fountain  In  the  center 
gurgles  sleepily  and  sends  out  a  breeze  to  refresh 
the  heavy  city  air. 

At  the  four  corners  of  the  main  room  are  small 
rooms  shut  off  by  thick  hangings,  which  are  known 
as  "party  rooms."  These  have  a  seating  capac- 
ity for  from  twelve  to  twenty  men  and  may  be 
reserved  In  advance  by  groups  desiring  a  privacy 
greater  than  can  be  afforded  In  the  main  room. 
Around  the  sides  of  the  main  room  are  booths 
with  wide,  deep  cushioned  seats,  and  tables  with 
small  shaded  lamps,  at  which  five  or  six  men  can 
find  places. 

Here  the  lords  of  creation  are  free  to  scatter 
cigar  and  cigarette  ashes  where  they  will,  and  to 
sit  with  legs  crossed  without  fearing  that  any 
critical  feminine  eye  will  search  them  out,  for 
no  woman  Is  permitted  to  enter  as  a  guest.     If 


90  The  Woman  Who  Waits 

a  man  wishes  to  entertain  his  wife,  his  friend,  or 
his  sweetheart,  at  Usher  Lane's,  he  must  do  so 
in  the  women's  lunch  rooms. 

By  half  past  eleven  the  grill  room  is  ready  for 
the  day's  guests.  Every  chair  has  been  carefully 
dusted  and  every  table  has  been  carefully  washed. 
Each  table  has  its  centerpiece  and  plate  doilies 
in  pi.'"",  its  napkins  neatly  folded,  and  its  allow- 
ance of  silver  correctly  laid.  The  maids  then 
stand  around,  very  prim  and  neat  in  their  de- 
mure uniforms  and  await  the  advent  of  the  pa- 
trons of  this  exclusive  rendezvous,  this  tea  room 
for  men. 

Shortly  before  twelve,  the  elevators  in  the 
front  of  the  room  begin  to  unload  the  guests  of 
the  day  who  stop  at  the  cigar  counter  to  purchase 
smoking  materials  and  then  leisurely  stroll  past 
the  gurgling  fountain  until  they  reach  their  ac- 
customed places.  The  maids  hand  each  a  menu 
card,  and  then,  with  flattering  deference,  await 
the  orders. 

On  this,  my  first  day,  a  handsome  old  gentle- 
man with  white  hair  and  an  air  of  being  bored 
with  all  things  at  present  existing,  sat  down  at 
one  of  my  tables.  Nonchalantly  he  unfolded  his 
napkin,  stuck  a  pince  nez  on  the  bridge  of  his  aris- 
tocratic nose,  and  glancing  hastily  at  the  menu 
card,  said  indifferently: 

"Bring  me  half  a  lobster  and  a  cup  of  coffee." 


A   Tea  Room  for  Men  9! 

After  a  very  long  interval,  I  returned  from 
the  kitchen  with  the  half  of  lobster  and  the  cup 
of  coffee  on  my  tray.  But  the  accompaniments 
of  that  small  order  were  truly  legion.  The  lob- 
ster reposed  upon  a  bed  of  lettuce,  and  around 
about  him  was  a  dabby  little  mixture  dotted  with 
caviar;  a  lump  of  yellow  mayonnaise  nestled 
coyly  underneath  a  claw;  an  olive  marked  the 
apex  of  his  tail;  a  sprig  of  parsley  contrasted 
vividly  with  the  orange  red  of  his  horny  exterior, 
and  a  bit  of  pimento  gave  the  needed  dash  of 
color  to  the  whole.  And  to  serve  this  luncheon 
with  a  nicety  demanded  by  the  exquisite  dignity 
of  the  grill  room,  I  brought  extra  plates  and 
knives,  designed  especially  for  the  serving  of 
lobster  in  half  portions,  and,  beside  the  cup  of 
coffee  I  placed  a  graceful  little  crea.ii  >itcher  with 
a  swanlike  neck,  and  a  silver  bow]  ..ontaining  ob- 
longs of  sugar  upon  which  lay  a  tiny  pair  of  sil- 
ver tongs. 

When  the  gentleman  had  finished  pecking 
away  at  the  costly  half  of  lobster  and  sipping  his 
coffee  from  the  Haviland  china  cup  with  its 
wreath  of  roses  making  a  conventional  border 
around  the  rim,  he  ordered  an  orange  ice  for  his 
dessert.  This  I  served  to  him  with  even  greater 
ceremony  than  had  attended  the  serving  of  the 
lobster.  Finally  I  placed  before  him  a  tiny  sil- 
ver finger  bowl  garnished  underneath  with  a  lit- 


92  The  Woman  Who  Waits 

tie  square  of  white  peppermint  candy.  No  gen- 
tleman who  lunches  at  this  tea  room  would  ever 
consider  his  meal  complete  without  it,  and  woe 
to  the  waitress  who,  in  her  hurried  progress 
through  the  kitchen,  fails  to  secure  it  for  her 
guest.  In  his  righteous  indignation  he  will  for- 
get to  deposit  beside  his  plate  the  little  shining 
dime  which  is  his  recognition  of  her  service  to 
him  as  a  personage. 

We  long-hour  girls  dined  each  day  in  the  larg- 
est of  the  party  rooms  which  was  in  the  corner 
of  the  grill  that  was  nearest  the  kitchen. 
Promptly  at  two  o'clock  we  filed  into  the 
kitchen,  and,  tray  in  hand,  collected  from  the  va- 
rious racks  and  warming  ovens  the  materials  for 
our  meal.  We  were  permitted  anything  we 
wished,  including  dessert  and  generous  pots  of 
tea  or  coffee.  We  used  the  same  dishes  and  sil- 
ver that  were  used  by  the  guests  and  those  who 
wished  could  indulge  in  the  luxury  of  a  napkin, 
but  on  our  dining  table,  instead  of  doilies  or  table 
cloth,  were  spread  sheets  from  the  newspapers 
left  carelessly  behind  by  the  men  who  had  eaten 
and  gone. 

We  were  allowed  one  hour  for  this  meal  and 
that  hour  was  every  day  packed  full  of  fun  and 
frolic.  The  girls  told  stories,  played  jokes,  gave 
impersonations,  and  jollied  one  another  about  the 
happenings  of  the  day.     For  example,  one  day 


A   Tea  Room  for  Men  93 

I  had  taken  a  drink  of  water  in  the  dining-room. 
It  was  at  the  close  of  the  lunch  hour  and  almost 
no  one  was  in  the  room  except  the  girls,  but  my 
act  caused  a  mild  sensation.  It  seemed  that  this 
was  against  the  rules.  At  lunch  an  English  girl 
named  Janet,  who  was  very  clever  and  jolly, 
leaned  across  the  table  towards  me  and  said: 

"I  hear  you've  taken  to  drink,  Fannie." 

"You  may  do  that  elsewhere  but  not  at  Usher 
Lane's,"  said  some  one  else,  with  mock  solem- 
nity. 

"Do  you  not  realize,  Fannie,  that  you  are  a 
part  of  a  great  organization?"  said  another 
clever  girl,  "you  are  not  a  'hasher.'  "  And  then 
she  added  in  imitation  of  Mrs.  Chesney's  man- 
ner, "you  are  a  saleswoman.  Your  business  is 
to  sell  food  but  you  are  no  less  a  saleswoman  than 
the  young  person  who  sells  cloaks  and  suits." 

"It's  well  for  you,  Fannie  dear,  that  mamma 
didn't  see  you,"  interposed  Janet,  "or  you  would 
be  this  minute  at  the  desk  in  the  front  of  the 
room  getting  a  little  lecture  on  how  to  behave 
at  Usher  Lane's." 

"Are  you  going  to  report  me,  Janet?" 

"Report  nothing!"  laughed  Janet,  "we  are 
tickled  to  death  that  you  got  away  with  it." 

After  dinner  each  day  we  did  side  work,  i.e., 
filling  sugar  bowls,  cleaning  ash  trays,  etc.  At 
this  work  there   was  plenty  of  opportunity   for 


vj 


94  The  Woman  Who  Waits 

sociability  and  the  girls  did  not  fail  to  avail 
themselves  of  it. 

One  day  Kathleen  told  us  at  great  length  how 
a  "swell"  dinner  had  been  served  in  the  home  of 
an  English  gentleman  in  London  where  she  had 
once  been  employed.  The  side  remarks  of 
Janet  and  Ellen  during  this  recital  were  exquisite 
comedy.     The  girls  screamed  with  laughter. 

Then  Kathleen  started  to  repeat  Wolsey's 
farewell  speech  but  Ellen  told  her  to  cut  out  the 
highbrow  stuff  and  give  us  something  that  we 
could  understand. 

Ellen  was  an  American  girl  of  the  Bowery 
type,  frankly  common  and  vulgar  but  very  clever. 
Janet,  however,  had  an  air  of  quiet  refinement 
which  I  have  noticed  is  characteristic  of  the  Eng- 
lish servant.  Both  had  once  been  maids  in  pri- 
vate families  but  neither  would  have  returned  to 
that  occupation.  It  is  the  group  life  in  the 
waitress  world  that  makes  the  appeal  and  the  lack 
of  It  Is  the  strongest  reason  why  girls  are  un- 
willing to  work  in  private  families. 

Just  then  I  looked  up  from  the  sugar  bowls 
that  I  was  piling  high  with  Crystal  Domino  and 
Ellen  said,  "Sh!"  shrugged  her  shoulders  and  re- 
marked ironically  for  my  benefit,  "Yes,  and  if 
she  hears,  she'll  think  we're  tough  here  and  of 
course  we  are  not." 

Every  evening  at  half  past  five  there  was  a 


A  Tea  Room  for  Men  95 

great  rush  and  hurry  in  the  dressing  room  for 
the  girls  were  anxious  to  get  to  Worthley's,  the 
Boston  Store,  or  the  Mart  to  shop. 

At  the  end  of  a  week  I  decided  to  leave  Lane's. 
It  was  my  first  long  hour  job  and  I  found  it  very 
exhausting.  I  had  never  worked  in  a  more  badly 
managed  kitchen.  The  women  who  served  the 
waitresses  in  the  kitchen  were  slow  and  unbusi- 
nesslike. They  were  always  running  out  of  rolls, 
dishes,  etc.  In  the  dining-room  we  had  to  hunt 
all  over  for  extra  linen  with  which  to  set  up  our 
tables  the  second  time.  In  fact  the  entire  grill 
room  was  run  in  far  from  the  businesslike,  mod- 
ern manner  which  I  had  expected  from  such  a 
firm. 

On  Thursday  I  told  Mrs.  Chesney  that  I 
should  leave  and  I  explained  why.  She  said, 
"Finish  out  the  week,  perhaps  you  will  have  a 
change  of  heart  by  Saturday," 

I  remained  firm  in  my  decision  to  leave  but 
I  found  it  very  diflicult.  Not  only  did  Mrs. 
Chesney  use  every  argument  to  induce  me  to 
change  my  mind,  but  the  girls  themselves  came 
to  me  and  begged  me  to  stay.  "And  why  won't 
you  stay,  Fannie?"  they  insisted,  "don't  you  like 
us?" 

In  vain  I  argued  that  the  hours  were  too  long, 
the  work  too  hard,  and  the  wages  too  small. 

"But  you  will  like  it  here  just  the  same  if  you 


g6  The  fVoman  Who  Waits 

will  only  stay  a  little  longer,"  they  insisted,  and 
Janet  offered  as  a  special  inducement,  to  give 
me  her  station  which  was  a  little  better  for  tips 
than  mine. 

When  I  went  to  the  paymaster's  window  to 
get  my  check  cashed,  one  of  the  kitchen  women 
was  there  drawing  out  some  money, 

*'Why  are  you  leaving,  girlie?"  she  asked. 

I  told  her. 

"We  get  six  dollars  a  week,  the  same  wages 
as  the  waitresses,  and  we  make  no  tips,"  said  she. 

"But  why  do  you  put  up  with  it?"  I  asked,  and 
added,  "it  is  a  crime  to  pay  such  wages.  No 
restaurant  in  the  Loop  pays  so  little." 

Her  eyes  filled  with  tears  as  she  replied,  "You 
are  young,  girlie,  you  can  afford  to  be  independ- 
ent, but  I  am  old.  If  I  give  up  this  job,  where 
can  I  get  another?" 

Usher  Lane's  keep  their  help.  In  spite  of  the 
low  wages  the  girls  stay  on.  They  take  a  keen 
interest  in  their  work  and  do  not  need  to  be  told 
V/  to  do  things.  Each  feels  a  personal  responsi- 
bility. It  is  the  policy  of  Usher  Lane's  that  holds 
them,  the  feeling  that  they  are  safe.  They 
know  that  they  will  be  given  every  chance  to 
make  good  and  do  not  fear  that  they  will  be 
"fired"  for  a  trivial  fault  and  sent  out  into  the 
world  to  hunt  another  job.  It  is  the  sense  of 
security  that  makes  the  appeal. 


CHAPTER  VIII 

HOME    HUNGRY  JANET 

When  I  was  eating  lunch  the  last  day  I  spent 
at  Usher  Lane's,  Janet,  the  English  girl,  leaned 
across  the  table  towards  me  and  said: 

"I'm  mad  at  you  for  leaving  us,  Fannie,  but 
come  tomorrow  and  drink  a  cup  of  tea  with  me 
just  the  same.  I  want  to  show  you  my  nice  little 
flat  that  I  live  in  all  by  myself." 

The  next  day  was  Sunday.  I  started  out  to 
pay  my  visit  to  Janet.  She  had  given  me  an  ad- 
dress on  Homefield  Avenue  near  Thirty-seventh 
Street,  one  of  the  business  thoroughfares  of  the 
city. 

It  was  a  lovely  spring  day.  As  I  walked 
along  looking  for  Janet's  number,  the  surface 
cars,  carrying  their  heavy  Sunday  loads  rumbled 
noisily  past  me.  The  little  shops  on  either  side 
of  the  avenue  were  closed  and  radiated  an  air  of 
small  town  respectability.  Some  sort  of  religious 
meeting  was  being  held  in  a  vacant  store  build- 
ing and  men  and  women  of  the  small  town  type, 
dressed   in   their   Sunday  best   were   passing  in 

97 


98  The  Woman  Who  Waits 

through  the  open  door.  Children  in  white 
stockings  and  cheap  straw  hats  were  playing  on 
the  walks. 

Janet's  number  turned  out  to  be  an  office  build- 
ing with  stores  on  the  ground  floor.  An  en- 
trance at  the  side  disclosed  a  stairway  leading 
to  the  rooms  above.  I  mounted  the  stairs  and 
found  myself  in  a  narrow  corridor  with  doors 
opening  upon  it  which  bore  the  signs  of  doctors 
dentists,  and  dressmakers.  On  one  door  was 
the  name,  J.  S.  Littleton. 

I  knocked.     Janet  opened  the  door. 

"Oh!  it's  you,  Fannie!"  she  cried  with  pleas- 
ure, and,  taking  my  hand,  she  led  me  in. 

She  had  a  tiny  apartment  consisting  of  a  bed- 
sitting  room,  a  combination  dining-room  and 
kitchen,  and  a  bath.  In  spite  of  the  fact  that  the 
dining-kitchen  had  no  outside  light  nor  ventila- 
tion and  that  the  plumbing  in  the  bathroom  was 
antique  and  unsanitary,  the  little  place  had  a 
charming  air  of  hominess  and  cleanliness. 
Photographs  of  Janet's  family  were  scattered 
about  and  several  books  of  the  popular  novel  va- 
riety were  on  the  little  living  room  table.  Gay 
colored  cushions  decorated  the  bed  couch  and  a 
comfortable  rocker  was  drawn  up  before  the  one 
small  window. 

Janet  was  strangely  like  her  little  apartment. 
Her  pale  sickly  skin  spoke  of  the  lack  of  sunshine 


Home  Hungry  Janet  99 

and  fresh  air,  yet  there  was  about  her  the  same 
air  of  cleanliness  and  respectability.  Her  smile 
was  gay  like  the  cushions  on  the  bed  couch  and 
she  suggested  the  same  sort  of  romance  that  was 
written  between  the  covers  of  the  books  which 
lay  on  the  little  table.  The  light  of  her  strong 
sweet  soul  lighted  up  her  plain  face  just  as  the 
one  small  window  with  its  little  potted  plant  gave 
light  and  cheer  to  the  little  sitting  room. 

Janet  was  very  proud  of  her  home.  "You 
know  I  roomed  for  years,"  said  she,  "and  then  I 
felt  that  I  must  have  a  place  of  my  own.  I  wanted 
it  all  to  myself  so  I  could  wash  when  I  pleased, 
take  a  bath  when  I  pleased,  and  have  things  as  I 
wanted  them.  I  was  afraid  at  first  to  live  all  alone 
like  this,  that  is  why  I  put  my  name  on  the  door 
J.  S.  Littleton,  so  strangers  wouldn't  know  that  a 
woman  lived  here.  And  I  was  afraid  on  account 
of  what  people  would  say  about  a  girl  living  alone, 
that  they  wouldn't  understand  that  I  was  just 
home  hungry.  The  landlord  didn't  want  to  rent 
to  me,  either.  This  is  a  respectable  building  and 
they  have  to  be  careful.  But  I  gave  Mrs.  Chesney 
as  a  reference  and  I  didn't  have  any  trouble  get- 
ting my  flat  after  that."  Then  she  added  proudly, 
"It's  a  good  recommendation  for  a  girl  to  work 
at  Usher  Lane's." 

"I  had  a  room-mate,  a  nice,  refined  girl,"  con- 
tinued Janet,  "but  she  went  away,  and,  although 


100  The  Woman  Who  Waits 

I  have  lots  of  girl  friends,  I  don't  like  any  of 
them  well  enough  to  have  them  live  with  me.  As 
long  as  I  can  afford  it  I  want  to  keep  this  place 
alone.  It  costs  me  twelve  dollars  a  month,  but  it 
is  worth  it  to  me.  I  don't  spend  money  on  clothes 
and  cabarets  the  way  most  of  the  girls  do.  I'd 
rather  have  a  home." 

Janet  set  the  table  for  us  in  the  little  dining- 
kitchen  and  we  sat  down  to  have  a  cup  of  tea  with 
bread  and  marmalade.  She  reveled  in  the  atmos- 
phere of  domesticity  and  played  the  hostess  to 
perfection  urging  me  again  and  again  to  take 
another  cup  of  tea  and  to  have  more  bread  and 
marmalade.  We  gossiped  the  afternoon  away, 
"just  as  my  mother  and  I  used  to  do  in  the  old 
country,"  said  Janet. 

"My  room-mate  was  a  Bohemian  girl,"  began 
Janet,  as  she  poured  my  second  cup  of  tea,  "so 
nice  and  refined,  but  she  never  did  well  at  Lane's 
because  she  wouldn't  fight,  and  if  you  want  to  get 
on  in  this  world  you've  got  to  fight  for  your  rights. 
I  felt  just  as  she  did  when  I  first  began  to  work 
and  the  other  girls  walked  all  over  me.  Then  I 
woke  up  and  began  to  fight  back.  I'd  like  to  see 
anyone  try  to  put  anything  over  on  me  now.  A 
working  girl  has  to  fight  every  inch  of  her  way, 
Fannie." 

"I've  worked  here  for  years;  ever  since  I  came 


Home  Hungry  Janet  lol 

from  England,  and  I've  had  good  jobs.  Two 
years  ago  I  had  two  hundred  and  fifty  dollars  in 
the  bank.  Then  I  was  sick  and  had  to  use  up  all 
my  savings.  A  year  ago  last  fall  I  was  down  and 
out;  I  didn't  know  how  I  was  going  to  eat.  Jobs 
are  hard  to  get  in  the  fall.  The  only  thing  I 
could  get  was  this  job  at  Lane's.  It  wasn't  as 
good  as  other  jobs  I'd  had,  but  I  had  to  stick. 
Every  day  it  seemed  as  though  I  couldn't  stand  it 
another  day.  The  work  was  so  hard  and  I  never 
saw  the  sunhght  for  months  except  on  Sunday. 
It  was  dark  when  I  went  to  work  in  the  morning 
and  dark  when  I  came  back  at  night  and  I  was 
shut  up  all  day  in  that  dark  room  with  those 
electric  lights  and  no  fresh  air.  That's  why  we 
all  look  pale  and  sickly.  As  soon  as  I  saw  you, 
I  knew  that  you  had  never  worked  much,  you 
looked  so  fresh." 

"I  like  the  girls,  and  I  hke  Mrs.  Chesney.  If 
it  wasn't  for  the  fun  I  have  there  cutting  up  with 
the  girls,  I'd  go  mad.  But  I've  saved  a  hundred 
and  fifty  dollars  now  and  as  soon  as  I  can,  I  want 
to  go  on  short  hours  and  then  I'll  learn  tailoring. 
I  can't  afford  to  be  a  waitress  all  my  life." 

"It  was  six  months  before  I  made  any  money 
at  Lane's.  At  first  my  tips  were  not  more  than 
ten  or  twenty  cents  a  day.  It's  hard  for  a  decent 
quiet  girl  to  make  tips  anywhere.     Now  I  have 


iti  The  Woman  M^Jio  Watts 

my  regular  customers,  married  men  with  families, 
who  don't  come  up  there  to  flirt,  and  I  generally 
make  a  dollar  a  day  in  tips." 

"I've  never  had  a  word  out  of  the  way  said  to 
me.  But  we  have  all  kind  of  girls  at  Lane's  just 
as  at  every  other  place,  and  the  sporty  girls  and 
the  ones  that  jolly  the  men  make  the  good  tips. 
Not  that  I'm  narrow  minded,  Fannie,  living 
around  this  way  takes  all  that  out  of  you,  and  I 
don't  criticize  the  girls.  If  a  girl  has  a  lover  and 
they  think  It  best  not  to  marry,  as  long  as  they 
are  not  injuring  any  third  party,  I  think  it's  be- 
tween them  and  God.  But  when  it's  for  money, 
I  don't  hold  with  that." 

"I  think  I'm  pretty  lucky  now.  I'm  getting 
six  and  a  half  in  wages  because  I  have  worked 
there  a  year  and  a  half,  and  I  have  this  little  place 
all  to  myself,  and  just  about  everything  I  want 
except  a  piano.  I  do  want  a  piano;  I  love  music 
so !  I've  got  a  pile  of  music  that  high,"  making  a 
motion  with  her  hands,  "and  I  feel  that  I  must 
have  a  piano  to  play  it  on  pretty  soon.  I'm  think- 
ing of  renting  one." 

I  wondered  where  she  could  put  it  in  that  tiny 
flat. 

As  I  listened  to  Janet,  I  was  filled  with  admira- 
tion. Alone  in  a  great  city,  absolutely  detached 
from  her  family  and  the  friends  of  her  childhood, 
she  had  the  courage  to  make  this  struggle  for 


Home  Hungry  Janet  1 03 

existence  and  at  the  same  time  to  cling* fast  to  her 
ideals,  and  to  do  this  in  an  environment  which 
so  obviously  did  not  demand  this  adherence.  She 
stood  for  all  that  was  most  decent,  most  respec- 
table, most  wholesome  in  the  waitress  world  and 
yet,  so  broad  were  here  sympathies  and  so  wide 
her  vision  of  life,  that  she  had  no  word  of  criti- 
cism for  those  who  did  not  order  their  ways  in 
conformity  with  her  standards  and  ideas  of  con- 
vention. 

When  I  asked  Janet  if  she  liked  the  movies,  she 
replied: 

"Yes,  indeed  I  do.  I  go  once  or  twice  every 
week.  Last  week  I  saw  such  an  impressive  pic- 
ture called  'the  Reward  of  Virtue.'  "  She  pro- 
ceeded to  sketch  rapidly  the  scenario,  dwelling 
with  the  greatest  pleasure  upon  all  the  details. 

"It  was  the  story  of  a  chorus  girl  in  a  big  city 
and  she  was  beautiful.  Of  course  they  are  al- 
ways beautiful  in  the  movies,"  and  Janet  smiled 
wisely  here.  "And  she  was  the  only  one  who  was 
good  in  that  whole  chorus.  The  other  girls  and 
the  manager  put  all  sorts  of  temptations  in  her 
way,  but  she  resisted  them  all.  Finally  a  rich 
young  fellow  asked  her  to  go  to  supper  with  him 
at  a  cafe  and  he  tried  to  tempt  her  but  she  said 
no  even  to  him,  though  she  loved  him.  When  he 
found  he  could  not  tempt  her,  he  gave  her  his 
card  with  his  name  and  address  on  it,  and  he  told 


104  The  Woman  Who  Waits 

her  to  come  to  him  at  that  address  if  she  ever  de- 
cided that  it  did  not  pay  to  be  virtuous. 

"A  day  comes  when  the  chorus  girl  is  dis- 
charged by  the  manager  because  he*  says  that  she 
does  not  help  to  fill  the  house  with  her  friends  as 
the  other  girls  do.  Soon  she  is  without  money  and 
without  food.  So  she  goes  to  the  apartment  of 
the  rich  young  man  and  she  tells  him  that  she  has 
decided  that  it  does  not  pay  to  be  virtuous,  and 
that  she  will  stay  with  him. 

"The  young  man  tells  her  to  stay  there,  but 
that  he  has  an  engagement  for  the  early  part  of 
the  evening,  but  he  will  return  later.  He  goes  out 
and  gets  drunk  and  does  not  return  until  the  next 
morning. 

"Well,  that  night  when  the  girl  is  sitting  wait- 
ing for  the  young  man  to  come  home,  there  is  a 
knock  at  the  door  and  a  servant  from  the  apart- 
ment across  the  hall  says  that  her  mistress  is  sick 
and  will  the  girl  come  and  stay  with  her  while  she 
gets  a  doctor. 

"The  chorus  girl  goes  and  she  stays  all  night 
because  the  woman  is  very  sick  and  they  can't  get 
a  nurse.  The  woman  has  a  baby  and  when  it  is 
born,  the  doctor  shows  the  girl  how  to  wash  and 
dress  it  and  when  It  is  washed  and  dressed  she  sits 
and  holds  it  in  her  arms  and  then,  all  at  once,  she 
feels  so  glad  that  she  has  escaped  a  great  danger. 

"The  next  morning  early  she  goes  back  to  the 


Home  Hungry  Janet  105 

young  man's  apartment  and  finds  him  sitting  there. 
She  tells  him  where  she  has  been  and  then  she 
takes  him  by  the  hand  and  leads  him  across  the 
hall  and  they  look  through  a  glass  door  at  the 
mother  and  her  baby  lying  on  the  bed.  Oh !  it  was 
such  a  beautiful  picture,  Fannie!  The  sun  was 
coming  in  through  the  windows  and  shining  with 
such  lovely  colors  on  the  mother  and  child  and  the 
chorus  girl  said  to  the  young  man,  'I  have  decided 
that  it  does  pay  to  be  virtuous,  for  the  reward  of 
virtue  is  motherhood.' 

"  'Yes,'  said  the  young  man,  *the  reward  of 
virtue  is  motherhood.  Will  you  be  my  wife?' 
And  then  the  curtain  went  down." 

"It  was  the  most  impressive  picture,  Fannie, 
every  girl  ought  to  see  it,"  and  Janet's  eyes  were 
bright  with  warm  appreciation  and  sincere 
pleasure.  There  was  no  question  in  her  mind  as 
to  whether  or  not  marriage  with  the  rich  young 
man  could  be  looked  upon  altogether  in  the  light 
of  a  reward. 

When  I  was  ready  to  go  Janet  accompanied  me 
to  the  door. 

"Do  come  again,  Fannie,"  she  urged.  "You 
don't  know  how  I  have  enjoyed  this  visit !  I  have 
the  girls  at  the  restaurant,  of  course,  but  I  haven't 
very  many  friends  on  the  outside  and  it's  nice 
to  know  a  girl  that  you  can  ask  in  for  a  cup  of 
tea  and  a  bit  of  toast  and  marmalade  of  a  Sun- 


io6  The  Woman  Who  Waits 

day  afternoon.  I'm  sorry  you've  left  the  restau- 
rant. I  liked  you  from  the  very  first  day,  and  if 
you'd  stayed  you'd  have  been  like  Marie  to  me. 
Not  that  I  blame  you,  though;  it's  hard  to  work 
long  hours  and  that  six  dollars  at  the  end  of  the 
week  looks  pretty  small. 

"And  Fannie,"  she  added,  "if  you  want  to  work 
at  the  places  where  the  money's  good,  don't  tell 
that  you've  ever  worked  at  Lane's.  They'll  just 
laugh  at  you  and  say  that  In  that  case  they  don't 
want  you." 

"Why  is  that?" 

"It's  the  lack  of  system.  You  don't  have  to  be 
swift  to  work  at  Usher  Lane's.  Any  old  lady 
can  get  a  job  there,"  and  she  laughed  as  she  bade 
me  good-bye. 


CHAPTER  IX 

WHERE  THE  WAITRESS  WORKS 

^  The  waitress  will  say,  when  talking  of  jobs, 
"Anything  is  better  than  a  hash  house,"  and  she 
will  worl^  in  one  only  when  she  can  find  no  other 
place.  She  very  often  begins  her  career  in  one 
but,  if  she  is  a  girl  with  any  ambition,  she  works 
into  something  better  as  soon  as  possible.  If  she 
remains  a  waitress  for  life,  she  is  almost  sure  to 
end  in  one,  for  the  hash  house  does  not  demand 
youth  and  physical  attractiveness  in  its  waitresses. 
Of  the  1,250  or  1,500  restaurants  in  Chicago, 
I  feel  that  I  can  safely  say  that  approximately  75 
per  cent,  are  hash  houses.  Two  or  three  are 
found  in  every  block  in  the  Loop,  and  they  are 
scattered  along  every  business  street  throughout 
the  city  no  matter  how  insignificant  that  street 
may  be.  They  do  most  of  their  business  at  the 
lunch  counters  which  occupy  the  greater  part  of 
their  rooms,  but  invariably  they  have  a  sign  on 
the  window  outside  which  reads,  "Tables  for 
Ladies."  These  tables  are,  however,  few  in  num- 
ber and  the  ladies  who  frequent  the  hash  houses 

107 


lo8  The  JVoman  Who  Waits 

are  fewer  still,  even  with  the  most  liberal  inter- 
ypretation  of  the  term.  The  hash  house  depends 
^  for  patronage  upon  men  customers. 

The  hash  house  is  open  day  and  night.  The 
employees,  both  men  and  women,  work  in 
"watches"  of  nine  or  ten  hours  each.  These 
watches  are  known  as  the  straight  watch,  i.e.,  ten 
hours  in  succession,  and  the  split  watch  which  may 
be  from  7  A.  M.  until  2  P.  M.,  and  from  5  to 
8  P.  M.  The  straight  day  watch  may  begin  at 
any  hour  after  5  P.  M.  and  the  straight  night 
watch  any  time  after  4  P.  M.  The  waitresses  who 
work  a  straight  or  split  watch  are  called  "steady" 
girls. 

Because  of  the  great  rush  of  business  at  the 
noon  hour,  the  hash  house  in  the  Loop  also  em- 
ploys a  large  number  of  extra  girls  between  the 
hours  of  1 1  A.  M.  and  2  P.  M.,  who  are  known 
y  as  "dinner  girls."  The  hash  house  serves  only 
short  orders  and  "plate  dinners"  (meat,  potatoes, 
and  one  vegetable  all  on  one  plate),  and  aims  to 
make  good  by  serving  these  orders  at  top  speed. 
It  caters  to  the  business  man  who  wishes  to  swal- 
low the  necessary  amount  of  nourishment  in  the 
smallest  possible  amount  of  time  and  to  pay  the 
minimum  price. 

The  tea  room  is  different.  In  the  first  place  It 
has  no  counter.  All  the  guests  are  seated  at 
tables  and  there  Is  an  affectation  of  clean  linen  and 


Where  the  Waitress  Works  109 

attractive  service.  The  tea  room  caters  to  women 
and  to  the  sedentary  business  man  whom  long  ex- 
perience has  taught  a  certain  caution  and  who  pre- 
fers a  light  repast  rather  than  a  square  meal.  It 
specializes  in  dainty  sandwiches  and  salads,  and 
in  desserts  that  have  a  little  flavor  of  the  home- 
made about  them.  The  waitress  in  the  tea  shop 
wears  a  nifty  little  apron  instead  of  one  of  the 
all-enveloping  variety;  she  takes  time  to  visit  a 
little  with  her  patrons,  to  study  their  wishes,  and 
to  serve  the  food  to  them  rather  than  to  throw  it 
at  them.  In  time  she  acquires  a  mincing  manner 
that  indicates  refinement.  The  meat  dishes  are 
garnished  with  a  bit  of  parsley  or  a  lettuce  leaf 
and  the  desserts  rest  upon  small  plates  that  are 
"underlined"  with  doilies;  the  china  is  dainty,  the 
napkins  have  a  bit  of  individuality  about  them;  the 
ices  and  sherbets  are  finished  with  a  luscious 
cherry;  the  prices  are  about  double  those  of  the 
hash  house. 

The  tea  room  is  found  all  over  the  Loop,  but 
especially  upon  or  near  Michigan  Avenue.  It  is 
seldom  located  upon  the  ground  floor  but  hides 
itself  away  upon  the  upper  floor  of  an  office  build- 
ing and  is  easily  accessible  only  to  the  initiated. 
It  is  also  found  in  every  neighborhood  in  the  city 
and  more  often  it  is  located  in  a  house  or  in  the 
basement  of  an  apartment  building  than  on  a 
business  street. 


no  The  Woman  Who  Waits 

The  tea  room  is  open  only  in  the  day  time.  The 
girls  who  work  there  come  on  watch  in  time  to 
serve  breakfast,  and  work  until  after  dinner  at 
night.  The  Loop  tea  room  also  employs  extra 
dinner  girls  who  should  be  called  lunch  girls,  who 
work  from  11.30  A.  M.  until  2.30  P.  M.,  and 
the  neighborhood  tea  room  employs  extra  supper 
girls  who  work  from  5  to  8  P.  M. 

The  tea  room  seems  to  attract  a  better  class 
of  waitress,  a  neater,  prettier  and  usually  a 
younger  girl.  The  seclusion  of  the  tea  room  ap- 
peals to  her.  At  the  Park  Tea  Room  which  is  lo- 
cated on  the  second  floor  of  the  State  Building, 
a  waitress  said  to  me,  "This  is  a  nice  place  to 
work  if  you've  got  swell  friends  and  you  don't 
want  them  to  know  that  you  are  working." 

The  cafe  serves  three  meals  a  day  and  it  serves 
them  at  tables,  not  at  a  lunch  counter.  It  aims  to 
give  substantial  food  at  these  meals  and  at  a  rea- 
sonable price,  but  it  does  not  attempt  to  provide 
the  dainties  either  in  food  or  appointments  that 
are  set  forth  by  the  tea  room.  The  manager  of 
the  cafe  tries  to  employ  the  youngest,  prettiest, 
and  most  efficient  girls  that  he  can  find  and  he 
has  little  trouble  in  finding  them,  for  the  cafe  is  the 
most  lurcative  place  in  which  the  waitress  can 
work,  not  because  the  wages  paid  by  the  manage- 
ment are  better  than  those  paid  in  other  places 


Where  the  Waitress  Works  1 1 1 

but  because  of  the  tips  which,  in  the  cafe,  are  the 
greatest  source  of  income.  The  result  is  that  the 
chorus-girl  type  of  waitress  is  found  in  the  cafe, 
the  girl  whose  stockings  are  always  silk,  whose  un- 
derwear is  pink  crepe  de  chine,  and  whose  street 
clothes  are  la  derniere  crie  in  fashion  modes. 

The  patrons  of  these  cafes  are  vaudeville  ar- 
tists, chorus  girls,  actors  and  actresses  in  the  legit- 
imate drama,  office  men,  brokers,  shop  girls,  tele- 
phone girls,  waitresses  with  their  lovers,  chauf- 
feurs, railroad  conductors  with  their  wives, 
mothers  and  daughters  from  "down  State"  who 
are  in  town  to  do  a  little  shopping,  farmers  from 
Iowa  who  are  seeing  the  city,  greasy  Italians  with 
their  greasy  wives  and  still  greasier  babies;  in 
fact,  a  truly  cosmopolitan  crowd. 

The  cafe  gives  them  a  really  good  table  d'hote 
luncheon  for  fifty  cents  and  an  equally  good  table 
d'hote  dinner  for  sixty  cents,  and  it  makes  no  dif- 
ference to  those  who  do  not  know,  that  the  pers- 
piration drips  from  the  chef's  nose  into  the  soup 
and  that  all  the  help  spit  indiscriminately  upon  the 
floor  in  the  kitchen.  For  these  conditions  are  gen- 
eral in  all  kitchens  in  all  public  eating  places 
where  men  are  employed. 

Two  other  types  of  eating  place  where  the 
waitress  works  are  the  employees'  lunch  room  pro- 
vided by  large  manufacturing  concerns   and  the 


112  The  JVoman  Who  Waits 

clubs  like  the  College  Club,  The  Advertisers' 
Club,  the  Woman's  Club,  the  Men's  City  Club, 
etc. 

In  the  employees'  lunch  room  the  management 
gives  a  substantial  meal  at  the  least  possible  cost. 
For  example  at  the  x'\merican  Heat  and  Light  Co. 
the  employees  get  soup,  stew  with  potatoes,  salad 
or  a  vegetable,  and  dessert  with  tea,  coffee  or 
milk,  all  for  fifteen  cents.  At  the  College  Club  a 
two-course  luncheon  is  served  for  thirty-five  cents, 
and  a  four-course  luncheon  for  fifty  cents.  The 
club  is  open  only  to  members  and  such  guests  as 
they  may  choose  to  bring. 

Both  the  clubs'  and  the  employees'  lunch  rooms 
are  carefully  avoided  by  the  waitress,  for  the 
wages  are  small,  the  hours  long,  and  there  are  no 
tips.  It  is,  however,  much  easjer  to  keep  a  job  in 
these  kinds  of  places  and  the  working  conditions 
are  likely  to  be  good,  but  they  offer  none  of  the 
fascinations  of  the  profession  and  into  positions 
of  this  sort  drift  the  older  women  who  have 
passed  through  the  stage  where  new  experience  is 
all  important,  and  have  reached  that  where  rela- 
tive security  has  more  value. 

Then  there  is  the  department  store  lunch  room, 
which  is  a  combination  of  the  tea  room  and  the 
cafe  and  open  only  during  the  day.  It  caters 
chiefly  to  women  and  for  this  reason  is  also 
avoided  by  the  waitress  as  long  as  she  is  young 


Where  the  Waitress  Works  113 

and  attractive  enough  to  get  a  job  where  men  are 
patrons.  But  when  she  has  lost  the  charms  of 
youth,  when  she  becomes  slow  of  hand  and  foot, 
the  department  store  lunch  room  may  become  a 
haven  of  refuge.  Any  observer  can  verify  the 
truth  of  these  statements  in  Usher  Lane's  Tea 
Rooms  for  women,  where  the  waitresses  are  mid- 
dle-aged, with  hair  screwed  tightly  back  and  fas- 
tened with  one  pin,  and  where  it  would  be  diffi- 
cult to  find  a  kissable  mouth  or  a  pair  of  enticing 
eyelashes.  Many  of  these  middle-aged  women 
have  never  worked  as  waitresses  until  they  began 
at  Usher  Lane's  where  the  minimum  wage  is  paid 
and  the  tips  from  the  wealthy  patrons  are  few  in 
number.  The  pretty  and  efficient  waitress  goes 
where  her  services  receive  more  active  apprecia- 
tion. 

The  neighborhood  restaurant  may  be  of  the 
cafe  or  tea  room  type.  Very  often  the  cafe  has 
a  lunch  counter  in  connection  with  it  but  in  a 
restaurant  of  this  type  more  business  is  done  at 
the  tables  than  at  the  lunch  counter.  The  neigh- 
borhood restaurant  is  a  more  significant  factor  in 
city  life  than  the  Loop  eating  place,  because  the 
downtown  restaurant,  for  the  most  part,  feeds 
business  people  who  must  of  necessity  eat  away 
from  home,  while  the  neighborhood  restaurant  is 
usurping  an  important  function  of  the  home  itself, 
for  its  patrons  are  not  only  those  detached  indi- 


114  The  Woman  Who  Waits 

viduals  who  live  in  furnished  rooms,  but  also  mar- 
ried couples  who  are  just  beginning  life  together, 
and  mothers  and  fathers  with  their  children. 

The  girl  who  formerly  did  general  housework 
in  the  home  is  now  a  waitress.  She  escapes  much 
of  the  drudgery  which  falls  to  the  lot  of  the  house 
servant,  for  that  is  done  in  the  restaurant  kitchens 
by  negroes  or  by  Polish  immigrants;  she  has  com- 
panionship and  definite  hours;  and  she  makes' 
more  than  twice  as  much  money  as  the  maid  in  the 
private  home. 

As  one  of  our  writers  on  home  economics  has 
said: 

"The  city  housewife,  who  finds  it  diflicult  to 
get  a  servant  and  expensive  to  keep  one,  or  who 
may  herself  be  employed  during  the  day,  turns  to 
the  restaurant  for  the  solution  of  her  problem. 
She  does  not,  however,  find  it  satisfactorily  solved, 
for  the  restaurant  keeper  is  too  interested  in  profit 
making  to  pay  any  attention  to  dietetics.  The 
restaurant  at  its  best  to-day  is  merely  a  make- 
shift during  this  period  of  transition  from  the 
home  dining-room  to  some  sort  of  cooperative  eat- 
ing place."  Just  how  we  will  work  out  a  satis- 
factory solution  for  this  problem  of  modern  city 
life  is  an  interesting  subject  for  speculation. 

The  attitude  of  the  employer  towards  the  wait- 
ress may  be  described  as  one  which  alternates  be- 
tween patient  resignation  and  active  exasperation. 
He  expects  her  to  lie  to  him,  to  steal  from  him,  "to 


Where  the  Waitress  Works  115 

stick  him  up"  [i.e.,  fail  to  report  for  work  with- 
out giving  him  notice),  and  she  makes  it  a  point 
not  to  disappoint  his  expectations.  In  the  summer 
months,  when  girls  are  scarce,  he  is  at  her  mercy, 
but  in  the  winter  he  has  his  innings. 

I  began  work  in  the  winter  of  191 7  and  I  was 
repeatedly  fired  from  my  first  jobs  for  some  tri- 
fling mistake.  I  was  not  a  competent  waitress, 
but  if  any  of  the  managers  had  had  any  vision, 
they  might  have  seen  that  I  was  the  material  out 
of  which  a  good  waitress  could  be  evolved  and 
that  it  would  pay  to  be  patient  with  me.  But  they 
did  not  see  it  and  it  suited  my  purpose  to  be  dis- 
charged. In  fact  I  preferred  being  "fired"  to 
quitting,  for  once  or  twice  I  found  some  difficulty 
in  formulating  reasons  for  v/ishing  to  depart. 

When  I  was  discharged  I  immediately  got 
another  job.  I  never  had  any  trouble  about  that. 
In  fact  I  found  it  much  easier  to  get  a  job  than 
to  keep  it.  But  my  progress  from  hash  house 
to  cafe,  from  cafe  to  tea  room,  and  from  tea  room 
back  again  to  hash  house,  taught  me  something 
about  the  business  and  about  life.  I  discovered 
that  in  a  Greek  restaurant  the  waitress  was  ex- 
pected to  be  "on  the  job"  every  minute,  that  there 
was  no  time  for  visiting  or  for  comradeship.  The 
Greek  feeds  his  waitresses  only  the  commonest 
food,  never  provides  them  with  a  dressing  room 
or  even  a  mirror,  but  with  a  few  hooks  only  on  a 


ii6  The  Woman  Who  Waits 

wall  upon  which  to  hang  their  hats  and  coats.  In- 
variably he  wants  them  to  wear  caps.  A  waitress 
hates  a  cap. 

The  Greek  is  efficient;  he  is  thrifty,  and  he  is 
clean  in  so  far  as  efficiency  demands  cleanliness, 
but  no  farther.  He  aims  to  turn  out  a  certain 
standardized  type  of  food  at  as  low  a  price  as 
possible  and  yet  leave  for  himself  a  fair  margin 
of  profit.  He  takes  the  impersonal  attitude  both 
with  his  employees  and  with  his  patrons.  He 
usually  works  in  the  restaurant  himself  in  some 
capacity,  perhaps  as  cook  or  counterman.  The 
patrons  seldom  know  who  he  is. 

The  German  manager  is  the  direct  opposite 
of  the  Greek.  Every  patron  knows  him.  Clad 
in  the  height  of  fashion,  and  wearing  nothing  that 
would  suggest  the  employee,  he  circulates  among 
the  patrons  and  is  a  good  fellow.  His  food  al- 
ways has  a  certain  individuality,  and,  although  he 
charges  a  good  price  for  it,  the  same  people  come 
back  to  him  day  after  day.  They  sit  in  the  same 
places  daily  and  laugh  and  joke  together,  for  the 
German  restaurant  is  permeated  by  an  atmosphere 
"ffemutlichkeit."  The  German  is  not  particular 
about  sanitary  conditions  nor  fussy  about  details 
of  service,  and  the  waitress  likes  to  work  for  him. 
He  always  provides  a  little  dressing  room  for  his 
girls  and  does  not  appear  to  notice  if  they  linger 
a  little  over  their  toilets.     He  allows  them  time 


Where  the  Waitress  Works  117 

to  eat  and  to  gossip  over  their  food  and  he  does 
not  nag  at  them  while  they  work  nor  shout  at 
them  to  step  lively  when  he  knows  that  they  are 
already  working  at  top  speed. 

At  the  Hayden  Square  the  girls  were  paid  the 
best  of  wages  and  were  given  the  best  of  food." 
They  can't  make  a  distinction  by  feeding  you  dif- 
ferent food  because  you  are  working  girls,"  said 
the  manager,  "I  won't  stand  for  that."  And  he 
was  kind  in  many  other  ways.  The  Hayden 
Square  was  the  chummiest  place  that  I  worked  in 
and  I  really  liked  it  better  than  any  other.  The 
working  conditions,  however,  were  poor;  the  kit- 
chen was  enormous  and  it  took  so  many  steps  to 
collect  the  food  for  a  table  d'hote  dinner  that  a 
girl  certainly  earned  the  ten  cent  tip  that  she  was 
quite  sure  to  get  from  each  patron. 

The  waitresses  here  had  to  carry  out  all  the 
dirty  dishes.  That  was  very  hard,  for  the  loads 
were  too  heavy  for  any  woman.  Whenever  I 
could,  I  hired  Tom,  the  soda-fountain  boy,  to 
"bus"  mine  out  for  me.  The  manager  was  very 
unreasonable  about  this  and  I  got  many  a  scold- 
ing because  I  did  not  carry  my  dishes  out  promptly 
enough.  One  night  he  said  to  me,  "This  is  your 
tray,  Fannie,  take  it  out,"  and  then  he  piled  on  it 
a  lot  of  dirty  dishes  that  he  had  used  for  his  own 
dinner  although  it  was  already  entirely  loaded  and 
very  heavy.     I  went  into  the  kitchen  and  gave  a 


Ii8  The  Woman  Who  Waits 

negro  a  dime  to  come  and  carry  it  out  for  me. 
One  of  the  girls  noticed  this  and  said,  "  'Van'  will 
be  awful  mad  if  he  knows  you  are  hiring  a  nigger 
to  work  for  you.  He  expects  us  to  'bus'  out  our 
own  dishes." 

"Van"  was  a  good  individual  type  of  manager, 
kindly  at  times  and  then  again  unreasonable.  One 
night  he  would  tell  me  to  "pick  up"  people  that 
were  seated  near  each  other  and  the  next  night 
he  would  scold  me  for  doing  it.  He  never  per- 
mitted a  girl  to  use  her  own  intelligence.  One 
night  he  stopped  me  on  my  way  to  the  kitchen  to 
get  an  order  for  a  customer  and  sent  me  back  for 
a  tray  of  dirty  dishes.  "But,"  I  said,  "why  keep 
the  man  waiting  while  I  unload  that  tray  of  dishes. 
I  can  take  it  out  later." 

"You  do  as  you  are  told,"  he  said  angrily,  and 
his  reply  defined  his  attitude.  He  wished  every 
one  to  obey  his  dictation,  to  recognize  him  as 
"boss"  and  never  to  dispute  his  position  as  mas- 
ter. The  class  of  girl  that  he  had  working  for 
him  said  meekly,  "Yes,  sir,"  and  stormed  behind 
his  back.  The  waitress  learns  to  accept  what  such 
a  boss  says  without  protest  no  matter  how  unjust 
he  may  be.  She  endures  patiently  until  sometime 
when  she  is  exhausted  and  her  nerves  are  all  on 
edge ;  then  she  throws  discretion  to  the  winds,  tells 
him  what  she  thinks  of  him  and  is  fired.  When- 
ever there  was  a  woman  who  had  something  to 


I 


Where  the  Waitress  Works  119 

do  with  the  management,  the  girls  were  more  con- 
tented and  got  along  better  together.  Women  arc 
given  credit  for  being  naggers,  but  I  did  not  find 
this  true  in  the  restaurant  world. 

Thousands  of  people  are  eating  food  prepared 
under  the  filthiest  conditions,  and  it  was  only  in 
places  where  there  was  a  woman  at  the  head  that 
I  found  any  attempt  at  cleanliness.  At  such  places 
also,  the  food  had  more  individuality.  Women 
are  not  as  competent  executives  as  men,  but  the 
reason  is  because  they  have  not  yet  been  long 
enough  in  the  business  world.  Neither  do  women 
shave  the  margin  of  profit  so  close,  but  on  the 
whole  they  make  better  managers  of  eating  places 
than  men  and  I  believe  that  in  the  very  near  future 
this  field  will  be  given  over  entirely  to  them. 


CHAPTER  X 

THE  WORK  OF  THE  WAITRESS 

The  work  of  the  waitress  differs  in  the  different 
types  of  restaurants  and  depends  also  upon 
whether  she  is  a  long  or  short-hour  girl.  The 
short-hour  girl  does  little  or  no  side  work,  but 
spends  all  of  her  time  in  waiting  upon  people  while 
to  the  long-hour  girls  falls  all  the  drudgery  called 
in  waitress  language  "side  work." 

In  the  hash-house,  however,  even  the  long-hour 
girl  puts  in  the  greater  part  of  her  time  in  wait- 
ing. This  is  because  the  hash  house  serves  meals 
continuously  all  day  and  all  night.  Short-hour 
girls  come  on  only  to  handle  the  noon  rush  and 
the  waiting  at  all  other  times  is  done  by  the  long- 
hour  girl.  Most  of  the  side  work  is  done  by 
Polish  girls  called  porters  who  are  hired  for  the 
purpose  and  the  waitress  in  her  leisure  moments 
merely  folds  napkins,  or  wipes  and  fills  sugar 
bowls,  pepper  and  salt  shakers,  or  catsup  bot- 
tles. 

In  the  tea  room  there  is  much  more  side  work, 
tables  to  reset,  silver  to  clean,  glassware  to  wash 


The  Work  of  the  Waitress  121 

and  wipe,  linen  to  count,  and,  in  some  places  the 
dining-room  to  sweep. 

In  the  Men's  Grill  at  Usher  Lane's  there 
seemed  to  be  httle  except  side  work.  Each  long- 
hour  girl  was  given  a  section  to  clean;  i.e.,  a  cer- 
tain number  of  chairs,  tables,  booths,  and  buffets, 
two  booths  with  a  large  table  and  two  extra  chairs 
in  each  besides  the  leather  seats  and  woodwork, 
one  large  round  table  with  six  chairs,  fifteen  small 
tables  with  two  chairs  each,  and  a  big  party  room 
containing  an  immense  table  and  eighteen  chairs. 
I  also  cleaned  the  woodwork  and  windows  in  this 
room.  The  tables  and  buffets  had  to  be  washed 
and  the  chairs  and  woodwork  thoroughly  dusted. 

When  this  was  done  I  put  linen  on  all  the 
tables :  i.e.,  centerpieces,  plate  doilies,  and  nap- 
kins, and  then  counted  out  silver  and  glasses  for 
each  table.  This  meant  the  counting  and  placing 
of  sixty  knives,  sixty  forks,  sixty  large  service 
spoons,  sixty  tea  spoons,  sixty  butter  spreaders, 
sixty  glasses,  and  sixty  napkins  and  plate  doilies. 

After  this  task  was  finished  I  was  expected  to 
go  to  the  kitchen  to  wipe  sugar  bowls  or  silver, 
and  to  pick  chicken  from  bones  or  to  shell  peas, 
until  eleven-thirty. 

After  dinner  at  three  o'clock  the  girls  all  had 
certain  jobs  assigned  to  them  as  side  work  and 
these  took  from  3  until  5  P.  M.  My  job  was  to 
clean  and  fill  three  hundred  sugar  bowls.    Another 


122  The  Woman  Who  Waits 

girl  cleaned  ash  trays,  another  salt  and  pepper 
shakers. 

In  fact  almost  the  entire  day  at  Lane's  was 
spent  in  doing  side  work,  only  a  couple  of  hours 
daily  being  devoted  to  actual  waiting.  I  imagine 
that  the  men  who  go  there  have  little  idea  of  the 
amount  of  labor  it  takes  to  get  ready  for  them 
before  they  come  and  to  clean  up  after  them  when 
they  leave.  When  a  man  pays  fifty  cents  for  a 
tiny  chicken  pie  made  up  of  a  cover  of  puff  paste, 
some  gravy  and  a  few  bits  of  chicken,  he  is  not 
paying  for  the  ingredients  in  that  pie;  he  is  paying 
for  the  side  work  that  has  been  done  in  the  room 
where  that  pie  is  being  served.  The  pie  itself 
may  be  worth  ten  cents,  the  remaining  forty  cents 
pays  for  the  service  and  the  furnishings. 

The  hardest  thing  that  the  waitress  has  to 
contend  with  is  the  rush  and  this  is  to  be  met  in 
every  kind  of  restaurant  at  meal  time,  and  I  do 
not  know  whether  it  is  worse  at  the  hash  house 
where  the  men  keep  up  a  constant  clamor  but  are 
content  to  have  you  throw  the  food  down  on  the 
counter  and  let  them  eat  it  in  the  midst  of  the 
dirty  dishes  that  you  cannot  get  time  to  remove, 
or  at  Usher  Lane's  where  if  you  fail  to  remember 
the  square  of  peppermint  that  should  accompany 
his  finger-bowl,  the  wrathful  gentleman  will  forget 
your  tip. 

But  in  any  place  the  rush  is  nerve  wracking. 


The  Work  of  the  Waitress  123 

Your  success  in  handling  orders  depends  not  only 
upon  your  own  swiftness  but  upon  that  of  the  chef 
and  pantry  girl  and  also  upon  their  mood  at  the 
time  when  you  arrive.  Chefs  are  usually  good 
natured  as  well  as  efficient,  but  pantry  maids  are 
slow  and  stupid.  The  exceptions  to  this  rule  were 
the  Greek  cook  at  Chiros'  when  I  was  there,  who 
screamed  angrily  at  us  in  Dago  lingo  and  the 
pantry  maid  at  the  Hayden  Square,  a  pretty 
rosy-cheeked  girl  who  was  both  swift  of  hand  and 
sweet  of  disposition. 

The  working  conditions  in  the  kitchen  during 
the  rush  hour  were  worse  at  Lane's  than  at  any 
other  place  that  I  worked.  It  was  necessary  to 
have  so  many  dishes  on  which  to  serve  the  food 
and  so  many  frills.  Every  little  sprig  of  parsley, 
every  tiny  dish  of  relish,  every  little  doilie  of 
paper  lace,  meant  a  long  delay,  and  when  you  had 
your  tray  all  set  up  with  the  accessories,  you  had 
to  stand  in  line  an  interminable  time  before  the 
cooks  filled  your  orders  and  another  interminable 
time  before  the  checker  checked  you  out.  The 
men  get  very  impatient  waiting,  but  the  remark 
of  one  of  the  girls  one  day  explains  the  situation. 
"It  Isn't  because  we  are  such  bum  hashers,  it's  the 
way  this  kitchen  Is  run." 

The  reason  this  kitchen  Is  so  poorly  managed 
is  because  all  the  kitchen  help  are  women  who 
can  cook,  but  who  have  no  ability  to  manage. 


124  The  Woman  Who  Waits 

They  are  paid  from  $4.00  to  $7.00  or  at  most 
$10.00  or  $12.00  (depending  upon  length  of 
service  with  the  company)  per  week,  and  natur- 
ally the  most  efficient  women  do  not  care  for  these 
jobs. 

Another  great  occupational  difficulty  of  the 
waitress  is  the  lack  of  sufficient  dishes,  linen,  and 
silver.  I  found  this  true  in  every  place  I  worked 
except  the  Hayden  Square  Cafe,  where  there  was 
always  plenty.  Of  the  hash  houses,  White  and 
McCreary's  was  the  best  equipped.  At  the  Cafe 
des  Reflections  the  girls  spent  half  their 
time  running  all  over  the  dining-room  in  search 
of  napkins,  spoons,  or  glasses,  or  in  wash- 
ing dishes  in  the  kitchen  when  about  to  serve  an 
order.  \ 

/  The  work  of  the  waitress  may  be  classified  as 
casual  labor.  Occasionally  a  waitress  stays  a  year 
or  even  several  years  in  a  place,  but  such  instances 
are  the  exceptions.  Fully  90  per  cent,  of  the 
waitresses  whom  I  questioned  told  me  they  had 
spent  at  most  only  a  few  months  at  each  job. 

There  is  a  variety  of  reasons  for  this.  In  the 
first  place  it  is  easy  for  a  waitress  to  be  hired. 
She  is  required  to  give  no  references  and  she  may 
not  be  asked  where  she  has  worked  before.  Some- 
times she  works  weeks  in  a  place  without  being 
asked  to  give  her  full  name  and  her  address.  She 
is  known  simply  as  May  or  Susie.    If  the  manager 


The  Work  of  the  Waitress  125 

or  the  head  waitress  happens  to  be  in  need  of  help 
the  waitress  gets  a  job.  She  keeps  it  as  long  as 
she  gives  satisfaction  or  as  long  as  she  can  get 
along  with  her  fellow  workers.  In  some  places 
a  girl  cannot  keep  a  job  unless  she  meets  with  the 
approval  of  the  cook.  Quarrels  are  frequent  be- 
tween waitresses  and  between  waitresses  and  those 
higher  in  authority,  the  *'boss"  or  perhaps  the 
cashier. 

Sometimes  the  waitress  is  laid  off  because  some 
more  attractive  girl  has  applied  for  her  job.  This 
was  what  happened  to  Millie  who  was  working  at 
the  Taylor  Cafe.  A  dashing  blond  applied  for  a 
job  in  the  afternoon  and  so  pleased  the  eye  of  the 
young  Greek  who  ran  the  place  that  Millie  was 
laid  off  that  night.  To  be  laid  off  was  for  MiUie 
a  serious  misfortune  for  she  was  a  divorced 
woman  with  two  children  to  support,  and  the  loss 
of  even  one  day's  work  meant  a  great  deal  to  her. 

The  girls  themselves,  however,  quit  on  the 
slightest  pretext.  A  girl  will  work  a  few  months 
at  a  good  job,  save  some  money,  and  then  take  a 
vacation  and  spend  it  all.  She  takes  the  gambler's 
chance  on  getting  as  good  a  job  when  she  is  ready 
to  go  back  to  work. 

The  work  of  the  waitress  is  also  seasonal  in 
character  as  well  as  casual.  In  the  summer  there 
is  always  plenty  of  work.  The  summer  hotels, 
amusement  parks,  golf  clubs,  and  excursion  steam- 


126  The  Woman  Who  Waits 

ers  are  all  running  then  and  require  a  great  num- 
ber of  waitresses.  The  proprietor  in  the  Loop  has 
a  hard  time  to  secure  enough  help  to  handle  his 
trade.  But  in  the  fall  conditions  are  reversed, 
the  proprietor  has  his  innings.  He  has  his  choice 
of  the  most  attractive  and  efficient  girls,  and  the 
others  have  a  hard  pull  to  get  through  the  winter. 

One  day  in  the  spring  an  old,  broken  waitress 
said  to  me,  "There  ain't  no  chance  for  an  old  hen 
to  get  a  job  now,  but,"  she  added  gleefully,  "sum- 
mer is  coming,  and  then  we'll  get  even,  they'll  be 
glad  to  get  us." 

The  wages  of  the  waitress  are  about  the  same 
as  those  received  by  the  ordinary  office  girl  or 
typist,  and  a  little  better  than  those  of  the  shop 
girl.  For  example,  the  steady  girl  in  any  type  of 
restaurant  receives  not  less  than  $8.00  per  week 
for  ten  hours'  work  per  day  and  more  often  she 
receives  $10.00,  and  since  the  war,  many  places 
are  paying  as  high  as  $1  i.oo  and  $12.00  per  week. 
The  only  exception  that  I  know  is  Usher  Lane's 
where  the  steady  girl  is  paid  only  $6.00. 

The  dinner  girl  in  the  Loop  is  paid  $4.00,  $4.50 
or  $5.00  per  week  for  three  hours'  work,  the 
wages  being  a  little  less  in  the  places  where  the 
tips  are  best.  The  two  meal  girl  in  the  cafe  is 
paid  $6.00  or  $7.00  per  week  and  the  supper  girl 
in  the  neighborhood  restaurant  receives  $4.50  or 
even  $5.50  per  week  for  three  hours'  work.     The 


The  Work  of  the  Waitress  127 

wages  are  a  little  better  in  the  restaurants  outside 
the  Loop.  This  is  because  the  waitress  prefers 
to  work  in  the  Loop  as  she  is  then  downtown 
where  there  is  life  and  excitement  and  near  the 
Alliance  or  the  Union  which  are  her  clubs,  and 
where  she  meets  her  friends  when  her  work  is 
over. 

The  golf  clubs  and  resorts  pay  the  steady  girls 
during  the  summer  wages  ranging  from  $30.00  to 
$45.00  per  month  with  room  and  board.  These 
places  also  need  extra  girls  for  week  ends  and 
holidays  and  pay  $2.50  or  $3.00  per  day  and 
carfare. 

During  the  summer  many  of  the  girls  work 
"extra"  in  the  Loop  as  dinner  girls;  i.e.,  they  are 
sent  out  by  the  Alliance  in  answer  to  telephone 
calls  to  fill  temporary  vacancies.  In  this  way  the 
waitress  is  sure  of  75  cents  or  $1.00  in  wages  for 
three  hours'  work  and  she  can  count  on  working 
every  day  that  she  goes  to  the  Alliance  for  a  job. 
This,  with  the  $5.00  or  $6.00  which  she  can  earn 
in  the  week  end  insures  her  of  an  income  of  $9.00 
or  $10.00  every  week. 

But  the  waitress  does  not  depend  upon  her 
wages  alone  for  her  income.  The  tips  she  re- 
ceives are  in  some  instances  as  great  as  and  in 
some  greater  than  her  wages,  and  she  receives 
tips  in  almost  every  place  where  she  works  al- 
though some  places  are  better  for  tips  than  others, 


-128  The  JFoman  Who  Waits 

the  cafe  and  the  neighborhood  restaurant  being 
generally  recognized  as  the  best  places  in  which 
to  make  tips. 

The  wages  of  the  steady  girl  are  not  fair  in 
proportion  to  the  amount  of  labor  which  she  per- 
forms. She  does  all  the  side  work,  puts  in  more 
than  three  times  as  many  hours  and  receives  only 
twice  as  much  in  wages  as  the  short-hour  girl.  To 
be  sure  she  is  given  three  meals  a  day,  but  the 
short-hour  girl  is  given  two.  The  short-hour  girl 
works  only  at  the  time  when  there  is  the  best 
chance  of  making  tips. 

This  injustice  is  particularly  noticeable  at 
Lane's,  w^here  the  short-hour  girl  receives  $4.00 
for  three  and  a  half  hours'  work  and  has  a  better 
chance  to  make  tips  because  she  spends  a  half 
hour  more  in  actual  waiting  than  the  long-hour 
girl  does.  The  girls  themselves  spoke  of  this  but 
I  could  not  find  out  why  the  steady  girl  stood  for 
it. 

Often  a  girl  works  a  dinner  job  in  the  Loop  and 
also  a  supper  job  out  south  or  north  at  a  neigh- 
borhood restaurant.  In  this  way  she  avoids  the 
side  work,  has  two  or  three  hours  off  in  the  after- 
noon, and  makes  more  money. 

The  waitress  is  markedly  individualistic  in  her 
attitude  toward  life,  and  the  status  of  her  occu- 
pation as  it  exists  today  tends  towards  the  indi- 
vidualistic.    She  does  only  what  she  has  to  do  to 


The  Work  of  the  JFaitress  129 

earn  her  wages  and  her  only  real  interest  is  in  the 
tip.  In  her  work  she  does  not  often  consider  the 
house,  the  manager,  nor  her  fellow  workers,  but 
herself  only,  and  she  seldom  hesitates  to  advance 
her  own  interests  at  the  expense  of  others.  For 
example,  one  evening  at  the  Cafe  des  Reflections, 
I  went  out  into  the  kitchen  before  the  supper  rush 
began  and  washed  and  wiped  a  number  of  spoons 
and  brought  them  in  to  set  up  my  tables.  But  be- 
fore I  could  use  them,  a  girl  came  along  and 
grabbed  up  every  one.  I  ran  after  her  and  said 
indignantly,  "Those  are  my  spoons,  I  had  to  wash 
them  myself!" 

"Well,  they  are  mine  now,"  she  said  with  a 
laugh,  and  she  would  not  give  them  back. 

And  often  after  your  tables  are  all  set  up  with 
glasses,  silver,  and  napkins,  a  girl  from  another 
part  of  the  room  will  come  and  steal  your  set-ups 
when  your  back  is  turned.  Such  a  thing  as  team 
work  among  waitresses  is  unknown. 

Another  time  I  said  to  a  girl,  "It  is  a  shame  to 
use  these  nice  linen  napkins  for  side  towels." 

"We  should  worry!"  she  answered,  with  a  care- 
less shrug  of  her  shoulders. 

The  work  of  the  waitress,  because  it  is  so  ir- 
regular in  character,  because  it  can  be  entered 
upon  at  any  time  without  much  previous  training, 
and  because  the  waitress  can  quit  a  job  today  and 
be  very  sure  that  she  can  get  another  just  as  good 


130  The  Woman  Who  Waits 

tomorrow,  has  but  little  disciplinary  value.  The 
attitude  of  the  employer  is  an  important  factor 
also.  He  is  too  ready  to  discharge  his  help  at 
the  slightest  provocation.  Consequently  they  have 
no  sense  of  security  or  permanence. 

The  work  of  the  waitress,  however,  could  be 
organized  upon  a  distinctly  social  basis,  and  there 
might  be  great  opportunities  in  this  occupation  if 
the  waitress  could  be  made  to  see  the  value  of 
the  individual  to  society,  if  her  occupation  could 
be  made  more  creative. 

T  noticed  that  the  girls  who  worked  in  the 
Men's  Grill  at  Usher  Lane's  had  a  more  social 
and  less  individualistic  attitude  toward  their  work 
than  ^t  any  other  place,  at  least  where  I  had 
worked,  and  the  ones  who  had  worked  there  for 
any  length  of  time  were  actually  interested  in 
working  for  the  house.  This  was  due  to  the  atti- 
tude of  their  employer,  who  was  a  woman  of 
character  and  refinement.  She  made  them  feel 
that  they  were  part  of  a  great  organization  and 
got  them  to  look  upon  their  work  as  a  profession. 
She  did  not  nag  at  them  as  most  male  employers 
do,  but  after  clearly  defining  the  work,  placed  the 
responsibility  of  its  performance  upon  them. 

The  work  of  the  waitress  does  not  rank  very 
high  in  the  occupational  scale.  The  waitress  her- 
self is  ashamed  of  her  job,  and  tries  to  conceal 
from  her  friends  that  she  is  a  waitress.     "What's 


The  Work  of  the  Waitress  131 

the  use  of  letting  everybody  know  that  you  are  a 
hasher?"  she  will  say.  And  by  working  in  the 
Loop  or  in  some  place  far  from  her  own  neigh- 
borhood, she  can  easily  conceal  the  fact  that  she 
is  "hashing"  for  a  hving.  This  is  particularly 
easy  for  the  married  woman,  who  usually  works 
only  as  a  short-hour  girl. 

I  can,  however,  see  possibilities  In  the  occupa- 
tion of  waitress,  although  first  there  must  be  a 
change  in  the  attitude  of  the  employer  and  a 
recognition  of  length  of  service.  Then  a  better 
class  of  girl  might  go  into  the  work  and  the 
standards  of  the  girl  already  in  will  be  improved. 
The  "hiring  and  firing"  of  today  is  productive  of 
great  economic  waste. 

During  my  investigation,  I  have  met  one  edu- 
cated waitress,  a  graduate  of  an  Eastern  college. 
She  belonged  to  the  Alliance  and  worked  in  the 
Loop  because  she  needed  to  earn  her  living.  "I 
can  earn  just  as  much  money  and  have  a  great 
deal  more  freedom  than  I  could  as  an  ordinary 
teacher  and  I  meet  more  interesting  people,"  she 
said,  when  I  asked  her  why  she  was  in  the  work, 
and  she  continued,  "In  the  East  you  will  find 
many  college  girls  working  as  waitresses  in  the 
better  class  of  places,  but  you  do  not  find  them 
here." 

But  while  the  income  of  the  waitress,  made  up 
as  it  is  of  wages  and  tips,  is  much  better  than  that 


132  The  Woman  Who  Waits 

of  the  office  or  shop  girl  and  compares  very 
favorably  with  that  of  the  average  teacher,  sten- 
ographer, or  well-paid  saleswoman,  she  seldom 
saves  any  money,  and  is  more  often  "broke"  than 
women  in  other  occupations.  It  is  not  that  the 
wages  of  the  waitress  are  too  much.  She  can 
not  live  a  decent  life  on  less.  She  is  dependent 
entirely  upon  her  own  resources,  and  does  not, 
like  the  shop  girl  and  the  office  girl  "live  at  home." 
She  needs  all  she  makes.  But  what  she  needs 
more  is  education  and  a  different  attitude  upon 
the  part  of  the  public  towards  her  occupation. 


CHAPTER  XI 

WHERE   THE    WAITRESS    COMES    FROM 

There  is  an  astonishing  uniformity  in  the  con- 
ditions which  prevail  in  the  life  of  the  waitress. 
This  is  particularly  true  in  regard  to  her  place  of 
origin.  She  usually  comes  from  a  small  town  in 
Michigan,  Illinois,  Wisconsin,  or  some  state  not 
too  far  away,  and  is  herself  of  American  birth 
although  she  may  be  of  foreign  parentage.  She 
often  speaks  with  an  accent  which  betrays  this 
parentage.  Her  father  may  have  been  a  cement 
contractor,  or  a  small-town  merchant,  but  he  has 
probably  been  merely  a  laboring  man.  She  may 
be  of  any  age.  There  are  grandmothers  in  the 
waitress  group.  They  look  surprisingly  young 
and  take  a  keen  interest  in  life.  But  whether  a 
waitress  is  an  adolescent  or  a  patriarch,  she  is  a 
girl  still,  for  all  women  in  the  waitress  world  are 
known  as  girls  and  are  called  by  their  Christian 
names. 

The  waitress  becomes  a  waitress  because  she 
needs  the  money  that  she  earns.  If  she  is  mar- 
ried, she  needs  it  to  supplement  the  income  of  her 

133 


134  The  Woman  Who  Waits 

husband  in  providing  for  the  household  needs, 
while  if  she  is  unmarried  or  divorced,  she  depends 
entirely  upon  her  earnings  for  support. 

I  have  questioned  hundreds  of  girls  during  the 
course  of  my  investigation  and  I  think  it  is  a  safe 
guess  that  approximately  50  per  cent,  of  them 
were  married,  40  per  cent,  were  divorced  and  the 
remaining  10  per  cent,  were  unmarried.  I  found 
no  "old  maids." 

Short-hour  girls  are  usually,  but  not  always, 
married  women  and  long-hour  girls  single  or  di- 
vorced. The  married  waitress  has  often  been  a 
domestic  servant  before  marriage,  the  divorced 
waitress  has  married  between  the  ages  of  sixteen 
and  twenty  and  her  marriage  has  not  proved  a 
success.  Her  husband  may  have  been  a  drunkard, 
a  follower  of  other  women,  or  perhaps  merely  an 
economic  failure,  either  incapable  or  unwilling  to 
support  a  wife.  But  all  alike,  the  married,  the 
divorced,  and  the  young  girl,  have  entered  the 
life  because  it  offers  the  most  lucrative  occupation 
open  to  untrained  and  uneducated  women. 

"I  never  went  further  than  the  fourth  grade," 
said  a  girl  one  morning. 

"I  never  went  to  school  three  months  in  my 
whole  life,"  said  another. 

"Did  you  ev^er  hear  of  a  waitress  that  had 
an  education?"  said  the  first,  "If  she  had,  she 
wouldn't  be  in  the  business." 


Where  the  Waitress  Comes  From       135 

Such  a  girl  has  a  choice  of  but  few  callings, 
and  she  chooses  that  of  the  waitress  because  of 
its  greater  remuneration  and  its  greater  freedom. 
"I'd  never  do  housework  again,"  said  a  girl. 
"You  might  as  well  be  a  nun,  it's  so  darn  lone- 
some." It  is  the  group  life  that  makes  the  ap- 
peal, the  sociabihty  and  the  comradeship  during 
working  hours. 

The  divorced  or  unmarried  waitress  looks  a 
little  scornfully  upon  the  married  waitress  and 
the  latter,  if  she  is  wise,  does  not  mention  her 
husband. 

"It  makes  me  sick  to  hear  folks  braggin'  about 
their  men  when  they  have  to  go  out  and  work," 
said  a  German  girl  one  day. 

There  are  distinctions  among  waitresses  just 
as  there  are  among  all  classes  of  women,  and 
distinction  is  based  upon  the  sort  of  clothes  a 
girl  wears  more  than  upon  anything  else.  Of 
course  it  is  the  skillful  waitress  who  earns  the 
money  to  buy  the  clothes.  Efficiency  is  a  factor 
here  as  elsewhere.  Silk  stockings,  a  feather,  a 
georgette  waist,  a  brooch,  and  above  all,  a  dia- 
mond ring,  are  the  sort  of  things  that  make  dis- 
tinction in  the  waitress  group,  as  they  do  else- 
where for  that  matter. 

There  is  a  certain  type  of  waitress  who  wishes 
to  be  considered  refined.  She  dresses  in  good 
taste,  tries  to  speak  good  English,  but  betrays 


136  The  Woman  Who  Waits 

herself  by  the  frequent  use  of  "God"  and  "Hell" 
in  her  conversation.  Letty,  the  Irish  girl,  at  the 
Hayden  Square,  was  of  this  type.  The  night  she 
reproved  some  girls  who  were  using  vulgar  lan- 
guage, "Girls,"  said  she,  "refined  people  do  not 
use  such  language."  She  also  corrected  a  girl 
who  said,  "I  have  et."  But  a  little  later  I  heard 
her  say  to  another  girl: 

"For  God's  sake  leave  that  pin  at  home.  It 
looks  as  though  you  got  it  at  a  ten-cent  store. 
I  wouldn't  wear  it  to  a  dog-fight.  Fannie  is  the 
only  one  here  that  has  got  a  decent  pin.  Anyone 
can  see  that  hers  is  a  real  antique." 

At  home  the  waitress  may  have  been  a  Catholic, 
a  Lutheran,  a  IMethodist,  she  may  have  been  a 
member  of  a  conventional  small-town  group,  but 
when  she  comes  to  the  city,  she  puts  aside  the 
standards  that  she  has  inherited  and  sets  up  new 
ones  for  herself.  These  girls  say,  "When  we 
stayed  at  home  we  did  not  know  anything  about 
life.  Now  we  are  working  for  a  living,  we  know 
everything." 

For  example,  Evylin,  a  Catholic  girl,  who  was 
divorced  from  her  husband,  said,  "What  did  I 
get  by  gettin'  married  honest  by  the  priest  instead 
of  just  runnin'  off  with  some  man.  I've  had  noth- 
ing but  trouble — a  bad  husband,  hard  work,  and 
nothing  to  live  on.  I've  kept  straight  on  account 
of  my  little  girl,  but  I  don't  blame  the  girls  if  they 


Where  the  Waitress  Comes  From       137 

go  with  some  man  even  if  they  ain't  married. 
What's  the  use  of  gettin'  married!  As  long  as 
it's  just  one  man  and  you  hke  the  fellow,  I  don't 
see  no  harm  in  it.  But,"  she  added  as  an  after- 
thought, "I  don't  hold  to  this  layin'  up  with  just 
every  old  man  that  comes  along." 

And  another  little  girl  said  to  me,  "When  I 
was  at  home,  I  used  to  sit  every  night  by  the  table 
and  knit,  but  when  I  came  to  the  city,  it  wasn't 
three  weeks  before  I  was  goin'  out  every  night 
to  the  movies  and  shows  just  like  all  the  other 
girls." 

The  waitress  reads  almost  nothing  except  per- 
haps the  newspaper  (she  likes  the  murders  and 
the  evening  story  especially),  and  that  only  in  a 
superficial  way,  and  she  does  not  talk  much  about 
what  she  reads  but  about  things  that  are  to  her  of 
more  importance.  She  talks  about  her  work, 
about  the  meanness  of  the  "boss"  or  the  head 
waitress,  about  the  patrons  who  "stick  her  up" 
(fail  to  give  her  a  tip),  about  her  clothes,  how 
much  she  pays  for  this  or  that,  about  some  girl 
who  works  with  her  and  whom  she  does  not  like, 
about  the  divorces  that  are  being  obtained  by  the 
members  of  her  group,  about  her  "friend"  (lover) 
and  about  all  sorts  of  human,  personal  things. 
Personalities  represent  99  per  cent,  of  all  she 
thinks  worth  mentioning  in  conversation. 

The  waitress  who  is  married  spends  a  short 


138  The  Woman  Who  Waits 

time  whenever  she  can  spare  it  at  the  Alliance, 
or  the  Union,  where  she  meets  others  for  a  little 
gossip  and  relaxation,  and  once  in  a  while  she 
goes  to  a  movie  or  to  a  dance.  But  most  of  the 
time  that  she  is  not  working  as  a  waitress  she 
spends  in  household  duties.  For  example,  a  girl 
at  Lane's  was  allowed  to  go  home  one  day  at 
three  o'clock  instead  of  staying  until  5.15.  She 
was  very  happy  about  it.  "Now  I  can  start  my 
washing  by  daylight!"  she  exclaimed  joyfully. 
"I  do  hate  washing  after  dark." 

For  the  unmarried  waitress  home  is  usually  a 
furnished  room  and  she  spends  only  the  time  there 
that  is  necessary  for  washing,  ironing,  and  mend- 
ing her  clothes.  Practically  all  her  leisure  is 
spent  at  the'  movies,  cabarets,  and  restaurants, 
where  she  goes  with  her  "friend"  or  with  some 
other  girl.  There  is  nothing  that  a  waitress  en- 
joys more  than  a  meal  where  she  can  sit  down  at 
a  table  and  be  waited  upon. 

The  waitress  seeks  constant  amusement  in  her 
leisure  time  because  the  rush  of  her  work  keys 
her  up  to  a  nervous  pitch  where  she  demands  more 
stimulation.  But  her  pleasures  do  not  make  for 
efficiency,  they  have  little  or  no  stability  and  pro- 
ductivity and  are  a  great  waste. 

When  Lillie,  on  the  first  day  that  I  was  a  wait- 
ress, said  "Eatin'  is  the  main  business,"  she  em- 
phasized an  important  value  in  the  waitress  world. 


Where  the  Waitress  Comes  From       139 

And  I  am  inclined  to  think  that  it  is  more  of  a 
"main  business"  with  all  of  us  than  we  are  willing 
to  admit.  Anyone  who  doubts  this  statement 
might  try  being  a  waitress  or  a  "bus"  boy  and 
see  how  she  or  he  enjoys  a  dish  of  stew  and  po- 
tatoes, with  rolls  and  coffee,  eaten  from  a  counter 
in  a  hash  house. 

The  girls  like  to  work  where  they  are  given 
good  food.  The  Advertisers'  Club  is  a  favorite 
because  you  can  have  "any  old  thing  to  eat,  even 
dessert." 

"I  like  to  go  to  East  Meadows,"  some  one  will 
say,  "Gee,  we  had  chicken  and  ice  cream." 

These  girls  eat  what  is  left  on  the  plates  of  the 
patrons  of  the  restaurant.  A  bit  of  choice  meat 
or  fish,  some  salad,  a  fragment  of  pie  or  a  spoon- 
ful of  ice  cream  is  eagerly  gobbled  up  and  choked 
down  in  the  kitchen  during  the  rush,  even  though 
it  is  against  the  rules  to  eat  during  working  hours. 
At  lunch  time  the  girls  bargain  with  the  cook  for 
something  a  little  unusual  and  steal  pie  and 
French  pastry  and  eat  it  surreptitiously  behind  the 
manager's  back. 

The  religion  of  the  waitress  world  is  a  free  one. 
"Think  what  you  please,  it  makes  no  difference  to 
me,"  is  the  attitude.  The  oath  of  initiation  into 
the  Alliance  is  prefaced  by  this  statement,  "What 
you  are  about  to  swear  will  not  interfere  with  your 
nationality  or  with  your  religion." 


140  The  Woman  Who  Waits 

I  once  overheard  this  conversation  between 
girls : 

"And  so  while  my  father  was  over  to  the  sa- 
loon my  little  brother  had  three  convulsions  and 
died,"  said  the  first  girl.  "Ma  sent  for  him  and 
when  he  came  home  and  saw  that  my  little  brother 
was  dead,  he  took  on  something  awful.  He  said 
to  Ma  that  it  was  a  punishment  that  God  had  sent 
him  because  he  had  went  so  much  to  the  saloon 
instead  of  stayin'  with  her  and  helpin'  with  the 
housework  and  the  children  and  after  that  for 
three  years  he  never  went  near  a  saloon." 

"And  you  think  that  your  little  brother  died 
for  a  punishment  to  your  father,"  said  the  other. 
"Well,  I  don't.  I  don't  believe  that  there  is  a 
God  sendin'  out  punishments  to  folks.  I  think 
things  happen  that  are  goin'  to  happen,  that  it's 
your  destiny,  and  no  matter  what  you  do,  you 
can't  change  what  is  goin'  to  happen  to  you." 

The  moral  sentiments,  the  prevailing  ideas  of 
rights  and  duties  of  this  group  are  difficult  to 
define.  It  seems  to  me  that  the  waitress  is  a 
genuine  Bohemian,  Her  life  is  spent  in  trying  to 
escape  definitions  and  to  avoid  suppressions.  She 
has  little  idea  of  honor  nor  of  personal  obligation. 
She  cannot  be  depended  upon  to  keep  her  word. 

One  day  Hilda  wanted  me  to  go  to  White  and 
McCreary's  to  work  lunch. 


Where  the  Waitress  Comes  From       141 

"Indeed  I  won't  go  there!"  I  said  indignantly. 
"Do  you  know  wliat  he  did?  Once  I  went  there 
and  he  hired  me  for  a  steady  lunch  job,  but  it 
was  only  ten  o'clock  so  I  said  I'd  do  a  little  shop- 
ping and  be  back  at  eleven,  and  when  I  went  back 
there  he  had  hired  another  girl  and  he  wouldn't 
give  me  the  job." 

"You  couldn't  blame  him,  Fannie,"  said  Hilda, 
"he  thought  you  didn't  Intend  to  come  back." 

"But  I  said  I  would." 

"That  makes  no  difference.  The  word  of  a 
waitress  ain't  nothin'.  Nine  girls  out  of  ten 
would  never  have  showed  up,"  answered  Hilda, 
and  then  continued  coaxingly,  "you  go  on  over 
there  and  work  lunch,  Fannie,  he  needs  a  girl 
awful  bad  and  he  has  always  treated  us  right. 
Now  you  belong  to  the  Alliance;  you'll  get  your 
money  all  right  even  if  you  don't  work.  Just  so 
long  as  you  are  sent  out  by  the  Alliance,  you 
ain't  comin'  in  off  the  streets  no  more  and  askin' 
for  jobs. 

"No,  you  ain't  a  streetwalker  no  more,  Fan- 
nie," laughed  a  girl  who  stood  near. 

One  Sunday  when  I  was  working  at  Laconia 
Park  where  only  Alliance  girls  are  employed,  I 
was  standing  at  the  end  of  a  line  waiting  for  my 
tray  to  be  checked  when  a  girl  coming  from  the 
kitchen  called  me  to  open  the  door  for  her.     She 


142  The  Woman  Who  Waits 

had  a  very  heavy  tray,  so  I  quickly  opened  the 
door  and  stood  holding  it  until  she  had  passed 
through. 

She  took  my  place  in  the  line.  I  attempted  to 
pass  her  but  she  blocked  the  narrow  passage  with 
her  body. 

"I  was  willing  to  hold  the  door  for  you,  but 
I'm  not  going  to  give  you  my  place  in  the  line," 
I  said  Indignantly.     "Let  me  passl" 

She  stubbornly  held  her  position.  I  raged. 
"Did  you  ever  see  anything  to  beat  that?"  I  ex- 
claimed to  the  girls  who  stood  near. 

"Aw,  shut  up!"  said  the  girl,  "makin'  such  a 
fuss  because  I  asked  you  to  open  the  dooro  Can't 
you  do  a  little  thing  like  that  for  a  person  with- 
out makin'  a  fuss!" 

"I'm  not  making  a  fuss  about  the  door,"  I  pro< 
tested,  "I  want  my  place  in  the  line." 

"Well,  you  won't  get  it,"  she  said. 

And  I  did  not.  The  checker  looked  at  me  re- 
provingly, and  said : 

"If  you  can't  get  along  with  the  other  girls 
out  here,  you  better  not  come." 

The  members  of  the  Alliance  swear  in  their 
oath  of  Initiation  to  help  each  other  in  every  way 
that  they  can.  But  the  extreme  individualism  of 
the  waitress  is  responsible  for  a  lack  of  honor 
and  honesty  even  in  her  dealing  with  other  mem- 
bers of  the  Alliance. 


Where  the  Jl'aiiress  Comes  From       143 

Another  vice  peculiar  to  the  group  is  steaHng. 
The  girls  steal  even  from  each  other.  You  can- 
not leave  an  apron  at  the  Alliance  and  go  back  in 
an  hour  and  find  it  there.  Some  one  stole  the 
nickel  plate  from  under  the  sewing  machine  that 
one  of  the  girls  had  loaned  the  Alliance,  although 
this  could  have  been  of  no  possible  value  to  the 
thief.  And  one  day  I  left  a  ragged  coat  outside 
my  locker  at  a  restaurant  where  I  was  working, 
and  a  girl  said: 

"Better  put  it  in  your  locker,  honey,  someone 
will  steal  it." 

"But  it  is  so  old,  no  one  could  possibly  want 
It." 

"That  makes  no  difference,  someone  will  steal 
it  just  for  the  fun  of  stealin'  it." 

And  I  felt  that  that  very  girl  might  do  so, 
though  she  liked  me  and  had  a  better  coat  than 
mine. 

It  is  only  occasionally  that  you  will  find  a  girl 
who  is  willing  to  tell  you  about  the  good  places 
to  work.  Even  though  she  knows  that  she  has  no 
chance  there,  she  is  reluctant  about  "tipping  off" 
another  to  a  good  thing. 

These  girls  are  great  admirers  of  female 
beauty.  One  day  I  went  to  the  Art  Institute  with 
a  disreputable  looking  old  waitress  of  the  street- 
walker type,  and  she  was  enthusiastic  about  the 
nude  statues  of  beautiful  women.     "I  would  love 


144  The  Woman  Who  Waits 

to  touch  her,"  said  this  girl  as  we  stood  before  a 
Venus  mounted  high  on  a  pedestal,  "Aren't  her 
arms  lovely,  and  look  at  her  breast!" 

One  night  at  the  Hayden  Square  a  pretty  girl 
was  changing  her  waist  in  the  dressing-room  and 
another  went  up  to  her  and  passed  her  hands 
caressingly  over  the  bare  arms  and  breast  of  the 
pretty  girl  and  said,  "Pretty!  pretty!"  and  her 
eyes  were  full  of  pleasure. 

One  day  I  was  out  with  a  waitress  and  we 
stepped  in  at  a  restaurant  for  a  lunch.  She  was 
abominable  to  the  girl  who  brought  our  order, 
found  fault  with  everything,  and  finally  sent  the 
order  back  to  the  kitchen.  I  was  much  amused 
for  I  could  see  that  she  was  acting  over  again  a 
scene  that  had  occurred  between  her  and  a  patron, 
this  time  with  the  positions  reversed. 

We  always  mixed  a  good  deal  of  gossip  with 
our  side-work  at  Lane's.  One  afternoon  some  one 
referred  to  the  day  that  Helen  Morris  came  down 
to  the  store  drunk.  There  was  no  criticism  of 
Helen  because  she  was  drunk,  but  indignation  wa-^ 
expressed  against  her  friends  for  permitting  her 
to  come  to  her  job  in  that  condition.  "No  man 
would  let  a  pal  of  his  go  to  his  job  like  that  and 
her  friends  ought  to  have  been  ashamed  of  them- 
selves," was  the  Indignant  verdict  of  the  group. 

I  did  not  find  much  drinking  in  this  group  as 
a  rule,  although  one  girl  said  one  day,  "I  quit 


fl 


Where  the  Waitress  Comes  From       145 

my  job  because  they  wouldn't  give  me  a  day  off 
for  the  dance.  When  I  go  to  a  dance,  I  get 
stewed,  and  when  I'm  stewed,  I  don't  care  a  damn 
about  any  old  job.  I  wanted  a  day  to  sober  up 
in  and  they  wouldn't  give  it  to  me  so  I  quit." 

Vulgar  language  and  the  use  of  profanity  are 
the  most  glaring  vices.  The  filthy  language  is 
the  outgrowth  of  the  low  ideal  of  sex  around 
which  centers  the  great  interest.  There  is  not 
much  that  is  complex  about  the  waitress  and  her 
behavior  can  easily  be  reduced  to  the  two  funda- 
mental appetites  of  food  hunger  and  sex  hunger. 
She  is  intelligent,  efficient,  industrious,  dishon- 
est, and  dishonorable,  loose  in  her  sex  relations, 
Impatient  of  the  restraints  put  upon  her  by  the 
members  of  the  group  from  which  she  came 
(parents,  relatives)  and  inclined  to  set  up  new 
standards  for  herself  and  to  make  a  new  group 
life  in  which  these  standards  are  approved. 


CHAPTER  XII 

HARVEST  TIME 

As  soon  as  summer  began,  the  Alliance  became 
a  lonesome  place.  There  were  no  girls  sitting 
around  waiting  for  jobs,  for  there  were  more  jobs 
than  there  were  girls  to  fill  them.  Hilda  had  con- 
tracts to  send  girls  to  half  a  dozen  of  the  best  golf 
clubs,  including  Lakewood  and  East  Meadows, 
and  the  manager  at  Laconia  Park  hired  all  his 
waitresses  through  her. 

"Summer  is  our  harvest  time,"  said  Hilda. 
Every  day  she  refused  dozens  of  calls  for  help. 
The  girls  went  like  harvest  hands  from  one  job 
to  another,  from  the  city  restaurant  to  the  country 
club,  and  back  again  to  the  city  restaurant,  stay- 
ing but  a  short  time  in  each  place  and  reaping  a 
harvest  of  high  wages  for  the  emergency  work 
that  they  had  been  called  in  to  perform.  I,  like 
the  others,  made  the  rounds  and  learned  to  know 
the  summer  time,  as  well  as  the  winter  time  life  of 
the  waitress. 

On  the  Fourth  of  July,  Hilda  had  an  order 
from  East   Meadows   for  thirty  girls  to  work 

146 


Harvest  Time  147 

"extra"  at  three  dollars  per  day.  I  was  one  of 
the  number  chosen;  so  I  arranged  to  meet  one  of 
the  others  who  had  been  at  East  Meadows  on 
Decoration  Day.  I  wore  the  black  uniform  of 
the  waitress  with  white  collar  and  cuffs.  Molly 
was  late  in  meeting  me  and  I  stood  for  a  long 
time  waiting  for  her.  When  she  came,  two  other 
girls  who  knew  her  but  whom  I  did  not  know, 
joined  us. 

Molly  did  not  introduce  us.  Introductions 
are  not  customary  In  the  waitress  world.  One  of 
the  girls  said: 

"I  knew  this  lady  was  goin'  out  there  the  minute 
I  seen  her,"  and  she  meant  me.  Always  after 
that  I  carried  my  black  waist  and  white  collars 
and  cuffs  in  a  small  handbag  just  as  the  other  girls 
did  and  wore  a  white  waist.  No  matter  how  tired 
she  is,  the  waitress  never  fails  to  change  her  black 
waist  for  a  white  one. 

Every  little  while  we  were  joined  by  two  or 
three  more  girls  until  in  all  there  were  about 
twenty  of  us.  When  we  reached  Damon  Avenue 
we  left  the  L  and  took  the  surface  car  for  sev- 
eral miles.  At  the  end  of  the  line,  we  got  off  and 
walked  for  a  mile  and  a  half  over  fields  and  golf 
links  to  the  East  Meadows  Golf  Club. 

Molly  and  I  walked  together.  "I  wouldn't 
mind  comin'  out  on  these  jobs  if  I  had  someone 
like  you  to  pal  around  with,"  said  she. 


148  The  Woman  Who  Waits 

"Don't  you  pal  with  the  Alliance  girls?"  I 
asked. 

"No,  I  don't,"  she  repHed,  "they  want  to  know 
too  damn  much!"  and  then  she  added. 

"The  girls  are  too  cliquey.  I'm  a  new  member 
and  they  don't  notice  me  half  the  time.  Decora- 
tion Day  I  worked  out  here  with  a  lot  of  them 
and  it  was  raining  cats  and  dogs  when  we  got 
through  work  and  them  girls  went  and  left  me  to 
come  home  alone  across  these  fields.  I  got  a  ride 
with  a  chauffeur  back  to  the  car  line  or  I'd  have 
had  to  stay  all  night." 

By  this  time  we  had  reached  the  club  house. 
We  trailed  around  and  entered  the  kitchen  door. 
In  the  back  hall  we  were  met  by  the  locker  woman 
of  the  club  who  gave  us  aprons.  These  we  put  on 
in  a  dirty  bathroom  where  we  were  sent  to  wash 
our  hands  and  arrange  our  hair.  Perhaps  ser- 
vants do  not  demand  cleanliness;  their  toilets  and 
baths  are  always  filthy.  Later  in  the  day  I  saw 
the  quarters  of  the  club  members  and  they  were 
as  clean  and  attractive  as  those  in  a  first-class 
hotel. 

We  had  two  meals  at  East  Meadows,  both  of 
which  were  served  in  a  dirty  little  basement  room. 
For  lunch  we  had  stewed  chicken,  potatoes,  bread 
and  butter,  and  tea;  arid  for  dinner,  roast  pork, 
peas,  bread  and  butter,  and  tea.  The  guests  had 
very  appetizing  meals  with  vegetables,  salad  and 


Harvest  Time  149 

dessert.  The  waitresses  looked  longingly  at  the 
good  things  that  they  were  not  allowed  to  have 
and  hidden  behind  a  door  or  In  a  dark  corner  of 
the  porch  gulped  down  hastily  the  scraps  that 
were  left  on  the  plates  of  the  guests. 

There  were  not  many  guests  at  lunch  and  the 
work  was  easy,  but  there  were  two  hundred  res- 
ervations for  dinner  and  It  took  the  entire  after- 
noon to  prepare  the  dining-room.  No  one  could 
have  any  idea  of  the  amount  of  work  necessary 
unless  she  took  an  active  part  in  the  preparation. 

When  it  came  time  to  serve  dinner,  the  girls 
were  all  tired  out  and,  as  there  was  no  hope  of 
tips,  all  were  dull  and  spiritless.  They  plodded 
mechanically  through  the  task  of  serving  dinner 
and  rejoiced  when,  at  nine  o'clock,  they  were  each 
paid  three  dollars  and  dismissed. 

As  we  walked  back  over  the  golf  links  towards 
the  car  line,  everyone  was  quiet,  everyone  was 
tired,  and  everyone  was  disposed  to  look  gloomily 
at  life  In  spite  of  the  beauty  of  the  night.  One  or 
two  spoke  of  the  moonlight  and  the  freshness  of 
the  country  air,  but  for  the  most  part,  they  walked 
on  in  silence. 

About  half-way  to  the  car  line,  a  chauffeur 
halted  his  big  touring  car  beside  us  and  called  out 
cordially: 

"Jump  in,  girls,  I'll  take  you  the  rest  of  the 
way." 


150  The  Woman  tVho  Walts 

We  jumped  In  gladly.  The  girls  began  to  laugh 
and  talk.  One  put  her  arms  around  the  chauffeur's 
neck  and  cried: 

"Ain't  he  the  lovely  man!" 

Several  leaned  over  and  whispered  to  him,  but 
I  did  not  catch  their  words. 

The  chauffeur  expanded  and  puffed  himself  out 
with  satisfaction  over  this  feminine  adoration. 

"I  bet  you  can't  guess  where  I  been  all  day!" 
he  announced  jovially. 

And  In  response  to  the  chorus  of  "Where? 
Come  on  now,  tell  us!"  he  replied: 

"I  took  the  folks  out  to  the  club  this  morning 
and  then  I  beat  it  for  the  House-of-Many-MIr- 
rors." 

"Oh,  was  you  there!"  cried  the  girls  enviously. 
"I  wish  you'd  taken  me!" 

"What  Is  the  House-of-Many-MIrrors?"  I 
asked,  and  added,  "it  seems  to  me  that  I  have 
heard  of  it." 

"Have  you  only  heard  of  it?"  exclaimed  the 
chauffeur  in  surprise.  "Ain't  you  never  been 
there?" 

"It's  a  road  house,"  volunteered  someone. 

"Did  any  of  you  ever  work  there?" 

"Work  there!  I  should  say  not!  It  ain't  a 
place  to  go  to  work,  it's  a  place  to  go  for  pleasure. 
I  was  there  a  year  ago  today  with  a  fellow  and  I 
stayed  all  day  and  all  night." 


Harvest  Time  151 

" mother 1"  sang  out  a  respec- 
table looking  old  girl  in  spectacles,  and  vile  words 
fell  wearily  from  her  lips.  "Ain't  it  lucky  we 
met  this  fellow !  That  God  damn  club  ought 
to  have  a  bus  to  take  us  back  and  forth.  Ex- 
pectin'  us  to  work  all  day  and  then  tramp  through 
them  fields  at  this  time  o'  night.  And  they  think 
they're^  swells!" 

"Aw,  shut  up  !"  said  another  girl.  "The  folks  at 
East  Meadows  ain't  swells,  they're  just  nice  peo- 
ple." 

I  sat  with  Molly  on  the  way  home.  "It's  a 
good  thing  we  met  that  fellow  when  we  was  goin' 
instead  of  comin',"  said  she,  "or  we'd  have  spent 
the  day  at  the  House-of-Many-Mirrors  instead  of 
at  the  East  Meadows  Golf  Club." 

One  summer  morning  I  went  to  the  Alliance 
about  eleven  o'clock.  As  I  opened  the  door  Hilda 
said,  "You  go  with  Emily  Mills  to  Cutler  Broth- 
ers to  work  lunch." 

Emily  Mills  was  seated  in  front  of  Hilda's 
desk.  She  was  a  small,  slender,  rather  pretty 
girl,  with  a  dull,  listless  expression,  heavy  sunken 
eyes,  and  a  skin  covered  with  ugly  pimples. 

"I  don't  want  to  work,  Hilda,"  said  she. 

"Shame  on  you,  Emily  Mills!"  said  Hilda,  and 
added  coaxingly,  "They  pay  a  dollar  for  lunch!" 

"I  should  worry  about  their  lousy  old  dollar," 
said  Emily  Mills. 


152  The  Woman  Who  Waits 

"Come  on  now,  girls,"  urged  Hilda,  "we  don't 
want  to  stick  Mattie  up."  Mattie,  the  head  wait- 
ress at  Cutler  Brothers,  was  an  Alliance  girl. 

Emily  pouted,  yawned,  stretched  herself,  and 
rose  reluctantly  from  her  seat.  "If  it  wasn't  for 
Mattie  I  wouldn't  go,"  said  she. 

Emily  and  I  walked  over  together. 

"Oh,  gee!  I'm  sick  o'  workin',"  said  she,  "if 
I'd  listened  to  my  sweetheart  and  got  married  last 
week,  I  wouldn't  have  to  work." 

"Who  is  your  sweetheart?"  I  asked. 

"He  is  a  chauffeur,"  replied  Emily,  and  then 
she  went  on  to  tell  me  that  he  was  a  divorced  man, 
that  she  was  a  divorced  woman,  and  the  mother  of 
a  child  three  years  old. 

The  employees'  lunch  room  at  Cutler  Brothers 
is  a  dull  and  uninteresting  place  in  which  to  work. 
The  trays  are  very  heavy,  the  dishes  thick  and 
cumbersome,  and  there  are  no  tips.  The  wait- 
resses here  are  called  upon  to  wipe  dishes  after 
the  meal  is  over  and  that  is  the  main  reason  why 
Cutler  Brothers  is  not  popular  at  the  Alliance. 

While  Emily  and  I  were  washing  and  wiping 
the  silver  and  glasses,  the  colored  elevator  boy 
came  into  the  kitchen  to  eat  his  lunch. 

"Say,"  he  called  to  us,  "I'd  like  to  a-died 
a-Iaughin'  after  I  brought  you  up  in  the  elevator 
this  morning!    I  thought  you  was  the  boss's  sister 


Harvest  Time  153 

and  then  1  found  out  you  was  just  a  waitress.  But 
you  look,  just  like  her." 

"If  she  is  good  looking,  I'm  sure  I  don't  mind,'' 
I  said. 

The  elevator  boy  stared  at  me.  "I'd  hke  to  a- 
died  a-laughin',"  he  repeated,  and  walked  away 
chuckling  to  himself. 

The  waitresses  at  Cutler  Brothers  are  not  al- 
lowed to  eat  until  all  the  work  is  done.  The  food 
had  looked  appetizing  while  we  were  serving  it, 
but  by  the  time  we  were  ready  to  eat  it,  it  was 
cold  and  messy  looking.  I  did  not  eat,  but  waited 
for  Emily. 

When  we  reached  the  street,  I  said  to  her,  "Are 
you  going  back  to  the  Alliance  to  get  a  supper 
job?" 

"Not  much  I"  she  replied,  "I'm  going  home  and 
take  my  baby  to  the  park." 

It  was  during  the  summer  that  I  worked  for 
a  week  at  the  Taylor  Restaurant.  The  pro- 
prietors of  this  place  were  Greeks  who  spoke 
scarcely  intelligible  English  and  who  turned  over 
the  management  of  the  dining-room  to  a  pert, 
ignorant  young  girl  of  nineteen  or  twenty  whom 
they  had  engaged  as  cashier.  She  sat  enthroned 
upon  a  high  stool  behind  the  cash  register  at  the 
cigar  counter  in  the  front  of  the  room,  chewed 
gum,  and  queened  it  over  the  other  girls.    With 


154  The  Woman  Who  Waits 

the  crook  of  her  little  finger,  or  the  pointing  of  her 
pencil  she  would  summon  the  waitresses  to  her 
cigar  counter  and  with  severity  lay  down  her 
commands.  Every  night  I  made  at  least  one  trip 
across  the  room  to  be  told: 

"I  don't  like  them  aperns,  Fannie,  them  ain't 
waitress  aprens,"  or  "Pull  your  cap  further  over 
your  hair  in  front,  Fannie,"  or  "Take  out  all  your 
'dead'  dishes  before  you  take  fresh  orders. 
Nothin'  makes  a  customer  so  sick  as  dead  dishes 
layin'  round.  You'll  have  to  learn  to  work 
faster." 

I  tried  to  take  her  reproofs  meekly  and  feigned 
an  air  of  demure  respect,  but  I  could  not  always 
suppress  my  amusement.  Finally  towards  the  end 
of  the  week,  she  lost  all  patience  with  me. 

"You  ain't  got  nuthin'  on  me,  Fannie!"  she 
burst  forth,  "to  make  you  act  so  stuck  up.  When 
it  comes  to  looks  and  clothes  both  I  can  put  it 
over  on  you — see!!" 

"Yes,  ma'am,"  I  answered  meekly,  although  I 
was  choking  with  laughter.  At  the  end  of  the 
week  when  I  went  for  my  wages  she  said  as  she 
handed  my  envelope  to  me: 

"You're  laid  off,  Fannie."  She  gave  me  what 
she  intended  to  be  a  "withering"  glance  and 
added,  "and,  look  here,  if  you  try  to  knock  me 
after  you  get  out-o'-here,  Fll  get  you — See  ! ! — I'll 
get  you  and  don't  you  forget  it!" 


J 


Harvest  Time  155 

It  was  while  I  was  at  the  Taylor  that  I  met 
with  an  interesting  experience.  Just  at  eight 
o'clock  one  night  when  we  supper  girls  were  car- 
rying out  our  last  dead  dishes,  a  waitress  grabbed 
me  by  the  arm  and  hissed  into  my  ear,  "My  God, 
Fannie!  the  kitchen  girl's  dying  out  in  the  alley. 
Let's  go  out  and  watch  her!" 

Down  went  my  dishes  on  to  the  counter  and  I 
quickly  followed  the  girl  through  the  kitchen  into 
the  back  alley.  There  on  the  ground  lay  the 
Polish  kitchen  girl  twitching  and  moaning  in 
helpless  agony  and  around  her  stood  an  audience 
of  considerable  size.  The  cook  was  there  with 
a  saucepan  in  his  hand,  another  kitchen  girl  stood 
winding  her  dish  towel  around  her  arm,  the  pro- 
prietor, who  had  been  helping  the  cook  with  the 
evening  rush,  had  run  out  with  the  perspiration 
dripping  from  the  end  of  his  nose,  and  several 
waitresses,  the  driver  of  a  Yellow  Cab,  various 
small  boys,  and  passers-by  from  the  street  had 
gathered  around  the  arena  in  which  the  kitchen 
girl  was  the  sole  performer.  Somebody  brought 
out  a  chair  and  a  couple  of  the  men  dragged  the 
poor  kitchen  girl  up  upon  It.  She  hung  limp  over 
its  back  with  froth  dripping  from  her  lips.  She 
continued  to  moan. 

"They  may  kill  her,"  I  thought.  "What  ought 
I  to  do?" 

I  had  had  the  short  course  In  nursing  at  St. 


156  The  Woman  Who  Waits 

Luke's  hospital  in  the  spring  that  had  been  given 
to  prospective  Nurses'  Aids,  but  none  of  the 
knowledge  which  I  had  acquired  seemed  to  fit  this 
particular  case.  However,  I  knew  that  something 
ought  to  be  done.  I  stepped  into  the  circle  and 
asserted  myself. 

"I  think  you  should  take  her  to  a  hospital,"  I 
said. 

The  women  in  the  party  all  protested.  One  of 
the  waitresses  began  to  rub  the  arms  of  the  kit- 
chen girl,  who  continued  to  moan.  The  Greek 
proprietor  talked  the  matter  over  with  the  Yellow 
Cabby  and  decided  to  adopt  my  suggestion. 

"Will  you  go  with  her?"  he  asked. 

The  cabby  backed  his  taxi  into  the  alley  and 
soon  I  found  myself  inside  with  the  moaning  Po- 
lish girl  in  my  arms,  her  coat  and  hat,  together 
with  mine,  in  a  heap  on  the  floor.  T  lurched  from 
side  to  side  as  the  cab  sped  on  and  the  kitchen 
girl  grew  heavy  as  I  held  her.  From  time  to  time 
I  wiped  her  lips  with  my  handkerchief.  The 
street  lights  made  gay  the  summer  night,  the  street 
cars  ground  past  us,  and  people  gazed  in  at  us 
curiously  when  our  cab  was  halted  by  the  trafl'ic 
of  the  streets.  Finally  the  neighborhood  through 
which  we  were  passing  began  to  look  familiar  and 
I  realized  that  we  were  within  a  block  or  two  of 
St.  Luke's. 


I 


Harvest  Time  157 

I  leaned  forward  and  tapped  the  Greek  pro- 
prietor on  the  shoulder.  "Why  not  take  her  to 
St.  Luke's?"  I  asked. 

"But  she  is  a  county  case,"  said  the  cabby. 

"But  St.  Luke's  takes  charity  cases." 

The  cabby  took  council  with  the  Greek,  then 
directed  his  taxi  around  to  the  Indiana  Avenue  en- 
trance of  St.  Luke's,  where  charity  cases  are  re- 
ceived. 

We  lifted  the  Polish  girl  into  the  wheel  chair 
that  was  sent  out  and  took  her  to  the  examining 
room.  She  had  revived  somewhat  by  this  time 
and  was  able  to  answer  after  a  fashion,  the  ques- 
tions that  were  put  to  her.  After  making  the  ex- 
amination, the  pompous  little  interne  announced, 
"Mild  case  of  heat  prostration,  scarcely  a  hospital 
case." 

"But  you  will  keep  her  for  the  night,  won't 
you?     She  lives  alone  in  a  furnished  room." 

"Yes,  we'll  keep  her,"  said  he,  "but  it's  scarcely 
worth  mussing  up  our  beds  when  they  are  no 
worse  than  this.  All  she  needs  is  a  rest."  He 
bustled  the  poor  kitchen  girl  into  the  wheel  chair, 
rang  for  a  nurse,  and  gave  orders  to  have  the 
patient  taken  to  one  of  the  wards.  His  whole 
manner  said  plainly,  "I'm  doing  this  as  a  favor 
to  you." 

"Thank   you,"   I   said  meekly,    "I'm  sorry   I 


158  The  Woman  Who  Waits 

troubled  you  needlessly,  but  she  seemed  very  ill," 
and  gathering  up  the  garments  of  the  kitchen  girl, 
I  trailed  apologetically  behind  the  wheel  chair. 

Soon  the  girl  was  tucked  into  a  little  white  bed 
in  a  dimly  lighted  ward  where  other  women  pa- 
tients slept  in  huddled  heaps  in  other  small  white 
beds. 

"Good-night,"  I  whispered  softly  as  I  bent  over 
her,  "I  will  come  for  you  early  in  the  morning. 
You  stay  here  till  I  come," 

The  kitchen  girl  caught  my  hand  and  pulled  me 
down  close  beside  her.  "You  bring  my  brown 
crepe  de  chine  dress.  I  wear  it  home  in  the 
morning,  and  my  other  shoes,  my  hat,  they  at  the 
restaurant." 

It  was  nearly  eleven  o'clock.  I  was  not  anxious 
for  a  long  weary  trip  back  on  the  L  to  the  res- 
taurant. 

"But  your  kitchen  dress  is  all  right  to  go  home 
in,"  I  said.     It  was  a  neat  blue  gingham. 

The  girl  shook  her  head.  "I  not  go  on  the 
street  car  in  that,"  said  she.  "I  so  ashamed.  You 
get  brown  crepe  de  chine." 

I  looked  down  at  the  swollen,  shapeless  mass 
that  was  the  kitchen  girl's  body,  at  the  dull  ugly 
face  with  its  small  eyes  and  wisps  of  thin  brown 
hair.  Even  she  must  have  a  crepe  de  chine  dress 
or  be  ashamed  to  ride  on  the  street  car! 

Obediently  I  returned  to  the  restaurant  for  the 


"Harvest  Time  159 

clothes  and  the  next  morning  I  escorted  away  from 
St.  Luke's  a  proud  kitchen  girl  decked  out  in  silk 
stockings,  slippers,  a  hat  with  roses  around  the 
crown  and  a  brown  crepe  de  chine  dress.  In  one 
silk  stocking,  tied  up  In  an  old  rag,  were  thirty 
dollars,  all  she  had  in  the  world. 

It  was  also  during  the  summer  that  Hilda  of- 
fered me  a  job  at  Lakewood.  "It's  to  wait  In 
the  help's  dining-room,  Fannie,"  said  she. 

I  hesitated,  then  decided  that  it  would  not  be 
wise  to  work  at  Lakewood  because  several  of  the 
girls  who  had  been  In  my  class  at  St.  Luke's  were 
members  of  the  Lakewood  Club.  Dottle,  one 
of  the  Alliance  girls,  who  was  in  the  office  at  the 
time  Hilda  spoke  to  me,  misunderstood  my  hesi- 
tation. 

"It's  a  good  job,  Fannie,"  said  she,  "and  you 
make  good  tips;  better  than  In  the  guests'  dining- 
room.  I  worked  there  one  summer  and  my  chum 
waited  on  the  guests  and  we  had  a  bet  up  which 
would  make  the  most  money.  Say,  at  the  end  of 
a  month,  she  hadn't  made  a  cent  and  I  had  four- 
teen dollars.  The  chauffeurs  and  maids  will  tip 
when  the  guests  won't." 

I  did  not,  however,  go  to  Lakewood. 

Laconia  Park  was  the  favorite  week-end  resort 
of  the  waitress  who  preferred  spending  the  sum- 
mer In  town  to  signing  up  for  the  season  at  a  golf 


i6o  The  Woman  Who  Waits 

club.  I  worked  there  several  week  ends.  It  is 
a  popular  summer  garden  which  offers  an  excel- 
lent opera  in  an  open-air  theater  and  dancing 
in  an  open  pavilion  as  well  as  food  and  soft 
drinks.  It  is  located  on  the  North  Shore  sev- 
eral miles  out  of  the  city  and  is  in  the  midst  of  a 
beautiful  wood.  During  the  summer  of  19 17  it 
was  crowded  on  Saturdays  and  Sundays  with  all 
classes  of  people. 

Every  week-end  Hilda  booked  twenty  or  thirty 
girls  for  "extra"  work  at  Laconia.  We  worked 
on  Saturdays  from  five  in  the  afternoon  until  mid- 
night and  on  Sundays  from  two  until  midnight. 
We  received  five  dollars  in  wages  and  some  girls 
made  as  much  more  in  tips.  I  was  not  one  of  the 
most  efficient  girls,  but  I  could  count  on  making 
seven  or  eight  dollars  every  week-end.  We  liked 
to  work  at  Laconia  because  the  money  was  good 
but  the  work  itself  was  unusually  difficult.  We 
had  to  walk  a  long  distance  with  our  trays  be- 
cause the  kitchen  was  far  from  the  dining-rooms 
and  so  also  were  the  soda  fountains  and  cashier's 
desk  where  we  paid  in  all  of  our  checks.  This 
last  was  most  important,  for  if  a  customer  es- 
caped without  payment,  we  were  held  responsible. 
No  small  part  of  our  job  was  keeping  an  eye  on 
the  patron. 

One  rainy  Sunday  night  when  nearly  every  one 


TJarvestTime  i6l 

was  at  the  concert  or  dancing  in  the  open-air  pa- 
vilion, two  soldier  boys  strayed  into  the  little  de- 
serted dining-room  where  I  was  stationed.  They 
were  tall,  clean,  healthy-looking  country  boys. 

"Why  aren't  you  dancing?"  I  asked  as  I  took 
their  order  for  sandwiches  and  coffee. 

"We  don't  know  anybody,"  said  one,  "and  we 
haven't  got  the  nerve  to  walk  up  to  a  girl  we 
don't  know  and  ask  her  for  a  dance." 

I  registered  sympathy  and  when  I  returned 
with  the  orders,  one  boy  said,  "Can't  you  dance 
with  us?" 

I  shook  my  head,  "I'm  here  to  work." 

"Don't  you  have  any  time  off?" 

"Oh,  yes,  I  work  here  only  Saturdays  and 
Sundays." 

"Can't  you  come  out  to  the  camp  to  see  us  some 
night — say  next  Tuesday  night,  and  bring  a  girl 
friend?  It^s  awful  lonesome  out  at  that  camp 
without  any  girls." 

"Oh,  I  can't,"  I  said. 

"Come  on  now,  please,"  pleaded  the  boy,  "You 
bring  another  girl  and  come;  we  have  from  seven 
until  ten  off  every  night  and  we  can  go  for  a  walk. 
It's  awful  pretty  out  by  the  camp." 

"I'm  sorry,  but  I  live  out  South  and  it's  too  far 
for  me  to  come." 

"You  mean  you  don't  like  the  looks  of  us.    You 


1 62  The  Woman  Who  Waits 

know  we  haven't  got  much  money  and  I  bet  you've 
got  a  fellow  with  lots  of  dough  that  can  show 
you  a  good  time." 

"No,  that's  not  it,"  I  protested,  laughing. 
"You  are  all  right,  but  I  haven't  time." 

"See!"  he  said  to  the  other  boy  with  a  grimace, 
"that's  the  way  they  turn  us  down." 

They  rose  to  go,  but  as  they  walked  off,  the 
boy  turned  and  said,  "If  you  knew  how  lonesome 
we  are,  you'd  take  pity  on  us  and  come." 


CHAPTER  XIII 

THE  KOSHER  SALAMI 

"Kosher  Salami  and  potato  salad,"  said  the 
first  patron  whose  order  I  took  on  the  morning 
that  I  went  to  work  in  the  Jewish  restaurant  at 
South  Wabash  Avenue. 

I  must  have  looked  a  little  puzzled,  for  he 
added: 

"If  you  don't  know  what  that  is,  just  give  my 
order  to  the  cook,  he  will  understand." 

Then  I  remembered  that  one  day  when  I  was 
visiting  the  Chicago  stockyards,  I  had  looked 
down  into  the  killing  pens  and  there  I  had  seen 
a  tall,  black-robed,  priestly  figure  moving  about 
among  the  cattle.  Upon  his  head  was  a  close- 
fitting  skull  cap  and  in  his  right  hand  was  a  huge 
sharp-pointed  knife. 

"It  is  the  day  that  we  have  set  aside  for  the 
killing  of  the  Jewish  meat,"  my  guide  had  ex- 
plained. 

As  I  watched  him,  the  priestly  figure  leaned 
over  a  cow  that  lay  prostrate  at  his  feet,  his  lips 
murmured  a  few  words  of  an  ancient  ritual  and 

163 


164  The  Woman  Who  Waits 

then,  with  nice  precision  he  jabbed  the  point  of 
the  knife  into  the  jugular  vein  of  the  animal. 
The  blood  spurted  out  like  a  stream  from  the 
nozzle  of  a  hose.  Wiping  his  blade  he  passed 
on  to  another  victim. 

This  priestly  figure  was  the  "Shohet"  of  the 
Jews,  a  man  who  had  studied  the  art  of  killing 
according  to  a  Mosaic  law.  The  meat  killed  by 
him  is  called  "Kosher"  meat.  The  orthodox  Jew 
will  eat  no  other  and  the  orthodox  Jew  is  so 
numerous  in  Chicago  that  certain  days  are  given 
him  in  the  pens  at  the  yard  for  the  killing  of  his 
meat.  This  meat  is  afterwards  kept  separate 
from  other  meat,  labelled  "Kosher,"  and  sent 
into  the  Jewish  retail  markets. 

This  restaurant  which  I  shall  call  the  Kosher 
Salami,  was  owned  and  managed  by  Jews  when 
I  worked  there,  but  was  patronized  by  Jews  and 
Gentiles  in  about  equal  numbers.  It  was  on  ac- 
count of  the  Jews  that  Kosher  meats  were  served 
and  there  was  no  butter  except  by  request. 

This  restaurant,  which  was  in  a  basement,  was 
of  the  cafe  type.  The  same  men  came  day  after 
day  and  sat  in  little  groups  at  the  same  tables  and 
here  the  gemiltUchkeit  of  the  German  restaurant 
prevailed.  This  relation  between  the  patron  and 
the  waitress,  was  friendly,  familiar,  suggestive  of 
even  greater  intimacy.  Practically  every  man  left 
a  tip  every  day,  but  the  tip  was  always  a  nickel. 


The  Kosher  Salami  165 

This,  so  the  girls  said,  was  a  New  York  custom. 
The  proprietor  used  to  sit  with  the  same  girl 
two  days  in  succession  and  on  one  of  these  two 
days  he  gave  her  a  nickel.  He  never  was  known 
to  leave  a  tip  both  days. 

The  same  girl  patrons  came  day  after  day 
also.  They  were  mostly  Jewish  girls,  stenog- 
raphers, typists,  and  workers  in  the  wholesale  mil- 
linery houses  which  are  near  Michigan  Avenue. 
The  waitresses  hated  them  because  they  never 
knew  what  they  wanted,  said  they  would  take  this 
or  that,  and  when  the  waitress  brought  it,  guessed 
they  wouldn't  have  it  after  all,  but  would  take  this 
other  instead.  Or,  if  satisfied  with  the  order, 
would  think  of  something  they  wanted  that  would' 
necessitate  another  trip  to  the  kitchen  from 
whence  the  first  order  had  just  been  brought. 
They  demanded  all  sorts  of  attentions  and  never 
left  a  tip. 

The  waitresses  at  the  Kosher  Salami  were  very 
pretty  girls.  They  gave  a  great  deal  of  attention 
to  dress  and  were  neat  and  smart  in  their  ap- 
pearance. I  became  well  acquainted  with  several 
of  them. 

Mayme,  a  pretty  blond,  told  me  that  she  had 
a  lover  who  had  rented  a  flat  for  her  to  live  in 
with  her  little  sister  who  was  feeble-minded.  She 
was  very  proud  of  her  home  and  talked  of  the 
curtains  she  was  making  and  of  the  plans  she  had 


1 66  The  Woman  Who  Waits 

for  furnishing  it,  just  as  any  married  woman 
might  have  done. 

NeUie  was  a  beautiful  girl  with  a  cameo-like 
profile.  She  had  a  daughter  thirteen  years  old 
whom  she  was  trying  to  keep  in  school.  In  talk- 
ing with  me  about  how  difficult  it  was  for  I  r  to 
do  this,  she  said: 

"Everyone  thinks  I'm  foolish  not  to  put  her 
to  work  but  she's  nothing  but  a  baby.  I  don't 
want  to  take  her  out  of  school  yet." 

Nellie  was  a  decent  girl  but  she  laughed  at  the 
smutty  stories  of  the  men  who  came  to  the  Kosher 
Salami  and  let  them  hold  her  hand  and  slap  her 
on  the  back. 

"It  makes  you  sick,"  said  she,  "but  it  gets  tKe 
money." 

Rachel,  the  only  Jewish  waitress,  was  most  un- 
popular with  the  others.  One  day,  when  she  ard 
they  were  comparing  expense  accounts,  she  sai'd 
that  she  paid  eleven  dollars  a  month  for  her  flat 
but  that  it  had  stove  heat.  The  others  said  they 
paid  as  high  as  twenty-eight  and  thirty  dollars 
for  theirs  which  had  steam  heat. 

Then  Rachel  went  on  to  say  that  she  earned  ten 
or  twelve  dollars  a  week  and  her  husband  earned 
twenty-five  and  that,  though  they  had  been  mar- 
ried only  a  year,  they  had  two  hundred  dollars 
in  the  bank.  "And  we  help  our  folks,  too,"  said 
she.     "We  give  three  dollars  a  week  to  his  par- 


The  Kosher  Salami  167 

ents  and  three  dollars  a  week  to  my  mother. 
Mother  has  ten  children  and  there  are  four  little 
ones  still  at  home.  The  older  ones  all  help  mother 
with  the  expenses,  but  it  is  not  enough  and  mother 
has  to  have  help  from  the  "Charities." 

"And  you  let  the  Charities  help  your  mother 
when  you've  got  two  hundred  dollars  in  the 
bank!"  exclaimed  Nellie  indignantly.  "Before  I'd 
let  the  Charities  help  my  mother,  I'd  take  that 
two  hundred  dollars  out  of  the  bank  quick  and 
hand  it  to  her!" 

"But  I  have  to  think  of  my  husband,"  pro- 
tested Rachel. 

"Husband,  nothin' !"  chimed  in  Mayme,  "you 
can  get  a  dozen  husbands — I  guess  I  know,  I've 
had  two — but  you  can  only  have  one  mother. 
When  it's  a  choice  between  a  husband  and  a 
mother,  a  husband  can  go  to  Hell!" 

"But  I  have  to  think  of  myself  and  my  hus- 
band," repeated  Rachel,  stubbornly  holding  her 
position.  "We  are  both  willing  to  give  our  folks 
what  we  think  we  can  afford,  but  not  all.  Every 
two  weeks  my  husband  brings  me  fifty  dollars  and 
I  put  ten  in  the  bank  and  I  send  twelve  to  our 
folks  and  the  rest  we  use  with  mine  to  live  on!" 

"And  you  live  in  a  flat  with  stove  heat  and  call 
that  living,"  sniffed  Mayme  contemptuously. 
"Well,  I  don't.  We  can  only  live  once  and  I'm 
going  to  have  comforts.     I  have  steam  heat  and 


1 68  The  Woman  Who  Waits 

hot  water  any  old  time  of  the  day  or  night  and 
I  got  electric  lights.  Any  old  time  I  live  in  a 
flat  with  stove  heat  just  to  save  a  little  money !" 

"Well,  do  you  think  I  want  to  work  always?" 
asked  Rachel,  and  added,  "Of  course  I  don't!  I 
want  my  husband  should  get  ahead  in  the  world. 
I  don't  want  he  should  always  be  a  clerk  in  a 
lawyer's  office  at  twenty-five  dollars  a  week.  He 
is  a  graduate  of  Northwestern  University  and  I 
want  he  should  have  a  business  of  his  own  and 
get  ahead  in  the  world.  While  I  am  young,  I  will 
work  and  help  him." 

"And  let  the  Charities  take  care  of  your  little 
brothers  and  you  with  two  hundred  dollars  in  the 
bank!"  said  Nellie,  and  there  was  infinite  scorn 
in  her  voice. 

"And  why  not?"  asked  Rachel,  "they  have  good 
care."  And  to  excuse  herself  a  little,  she  added, 
"I  give  what  my  husband  is  willing  I  should  give." 

"To  Hell  with  your  husband!"  cried  Mayme, 
"the  fellow  I'm  goin'  with  helps  me  take  care  of 
my  little   sister!" 

"But  you  ain't  married,  honey,"  protested 
Rachel,  "when  it's  speaking  of  husbands,  I've  got 
a  good  one  but  marriage  is  hard  and  fast,  girlie; 
it's  not  like  having  a  sweetheart.  Wait  till  you're 
married  to  him  and  see !" 

"Gee,  none  of  us  saves  any  money  except  you, 
Rachel,"  said  Ruth,  a  quiet  little  girl  who  had 


The  Kosher  Salami  169 

been  listening  as  she  washed  and  wiped  the  sugar 
bowls.  "A  waitress  throws  her  money  up  in  the 
air  and  what  sticks  to  the  ceiling  she  puts  in  the 
bank,  and  what  comes  down  she  spends — tra !  la  1" 

Rachel  said  that  she  was  true  to  her  husband 
but  she  talked  freely  about  intimate  matters  with 
the  men  who  sat  at  her  tables.  It  was  this  way 
that  she  made  her  good  tips. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  all  of  the  girls  catered  to 
this  taste.  They  laughed  at  the  dirty  jokes  of 
their  patrons  and  listened  to  their  obscene  stories 
and  retold  them  among  themselves  when  they 
were  doing  their  side  work.  They  showed  each 
other  verses  of  obscene  poetry.  They  pointed 
out  to  each  other  men  who  indulged  secretly  in 
perverse  sexual  practices.  And  yet  these  men 
looked  and  acted  much  as  other  people  do.  A 
casual  observer  eating  in  this  restaurant  could 
not  have  picked  them  out. 

One  day  three  young  men  sat  down  at  one  of 
my  tables.  As  I  was  returning  from  the  kitchen 
with  their  orders,  I  heard  one  of  them  say: 

"Gee,  you  should  have  been  with  us  the  other 
night.  Vve  had  some  French  girls  and  they  were 
great!" 

"Hush!"  said  one  of  the  others  when  he  saw 
me. 

The  first  speaker  blushed  and  they  discontinued 
the  conversation.    They  left  me  thirty-five  cents  in 


1 70  The  Woman  Who  Waits 

tips  but,  though  they  came  every  day  to  the  res- 
taurant they  never  again  sat  at  my  station. 

Another  day  at  lunch  time,  a  very  young  girl 
sat  down  at  one  of  my  tables  which  had  a  seating 
capacity  for  eight.  Several  men  were  already 
seated  at  this  table  and  they  seemed  to  know  the 
girl.  She  was  very  beautiful,  slender  and  grace- 
ful, with  wonderful  eyes  and  a  bewitching  expres- 
sion made  up  of  dimples  and  natural  charm.  In 
a  blaclc  dress  and  huge  hat  she  made  an  exquisite 
picture.  The  men  paid  her  silly  extravagant  com- 
pliments.    She  smiled,  beamed,  enjoyed  them  all. 

When  she  rose  to  go,  in  getting  her  coat  off 
a  hook,  she  leaned  over  one  of  the  men  and  her 
body  touched  his  at  full  length.  Her  dress  was 
very  low  and  her  breast  showed  as  she  leaned 
over.  He  exchanged  significant  glances  with  the 
other  men. 

Six  men  and  one  silly  little  girl,  unusually 
beautiful  and  attractive.  She  captivated  the  sand- 
wich man  also  so  that  he  stood  with  his  knife 
poised  in  the  air,  unable  to  cut  another  slice  of 
bread  until  she  had  gone,  and  even  the  waitresses 
said: 

"Ain't  she  a  whiz!  Gee,  she  is  some  classy 
kid!" 

The  scullions  in  the  public  eating-places  are 
vile  beyond  description  both  in  their  language  and 
in  their  personal  habits.     People  who  eat  in  res- 


The  Kosher  Salami  17 1 

taurants  do  not  realize  that  their  food  is  being 
handled  and  prepared  by  the  lowest  type  of  men 
that  can  be  found  in  a  great  city.  They  are  the 
down-and-outers,  the  scum  that  comes  from  the 
lodging-house  districts  where  are  huddled  to- 
gether that  enormous  host  of  the  city's  "home- 
less" men. 

Women  will  no  longer  do  the  kitchen  work  in 
restaurants.  Some  time  ago  it  was  done  by  Irish 
girls.  Then  the  Irish  girls  became  waitresses  or 
moved  up  even  higher,  and  were  replaced  by  the 
women  of  other  nationalities.  When  I  first 
started  to  be  a  waitress,  there  were  still  many 
Polish  and  Lithuanian  girls  who  were  doing  this 
work,  but  they  were  being  rapidly  replaced  by 
men,  until,  when  I  left  the  restaurant  world  there 
were  but  few  women  in  the  kitchens. 


CHAPTER  XIV 

THE  MEADOW  LARK 

A  SHORT  distance  from  Fairfield  Park,  one  of 
Chicago's  north  shore  suburbs,  the  Meadow  Lark 
Golf  Club  stands  apart  in  a  hvely  country  spot. 
Wild  flowers  are  in  the  woods  and  meadows  just 
behind  it  and  close-cropped  golf  links  roll  out 
before  it.  It  is  an  example  of  the  beauty  that  an 
architect  can  create  out  of  wood  and  stone  and 
of  the  harmony  that  can  be  realized  by  an  artis- 
tic assembling  of  furnishings  in  accord  with  the 
structure  as  a  whole.  With  its  wide,  cool  rooms, 
its  broad  screen  porches,  its  brick-tiled  grill,  its 
deep-cushioned  chairs,  Its  capacious  couches,  it 
extends  a  hearty  welcome  to  the  arriving  guest 
and  tempts  him  to  prolong  his  stay  far  beyond 
the  limits  of  his  first  intention.  It  delights  the 
eye  with  its  soft-toned  rugs  and  harmonious  hang- 
ings as  much  as  the  cool,  soft  breezes  that  blow 
through  the  open  French  windows  refresh  the 
skin.  Truly  an  ideal  place  in  which  to  loaf  and 
sip  iced  lemonade  on  a  balmy  summer  day  after 
eighteen  holes  of  strenuous  golf. 

172 


The  Meadow  Lark  173 

I  arrived,  a  waitress  sent  out  by  the  Alliance, 
at  this  paradise  of  golfers,  late  one  afternoon  in 
July.  My  taxi  drew  up  at  the  front  entrance. 
For  me  to  arrive  in  a  taxi  was  not  out  of  keeping 
with  my  role  of  waitress,  for  taxis,  like  cabarets 
and  Russian  Tea  Rooms,  are  patronized  exten- 
sively by  waitresses.  Suitcase  in  hand,  I  entered 
the  open  door.  No  one  was  visible,  so  I  walked 
through  the  spacious  rooms  until  I  found  the 
kitchen. 

"My  goodness,  Fannie !"  said  Rebecca,  the  pan- 
try maid,  a  few  days  later,  "I  thought  you  were  a 
guest  and  I  was  just  going  to  offer  you  a  glass 
of  water  and  dust  off  a  chair  for  you  when  you 
said  you  were  the  new  waitress." 

I  was  not  a  little  pleased  at  Rebecca's  recogni- 
tion for  throughout  my  experiences  I  had  been 
chagrined  at  the  success  of  my  disguise  which  was 
no  disguise  after  all.  I  had  merely  put  on  an 
apron  and  said  that  I  was  a  waitress  and  imme- 
diately every  one  accepted  me  as  one. 

After  dinner  the  night  of  my  arrival,  the  man- 
ager told  me  to  stay  downstairs  "on  watch."  He 
also  showed  me  how  to  lock  up  and  informed  me 
that  this  would  be  my  job  every  third  night.  I 
sat  around  on  the  porch  reading  a  book  and  en- 
joying the  marvelous  beauty  of  the  place.  Later 
the  manager  joined  me  for  a  time.  "I  was  just 
about  to  give  up  in  despair  and  put  on  Japs  here," 


174  The  Woman  Who  Waits 

said  he.  "I've  had  Union  girls  and  Alliance 
girls,  and  they  either  will  not  stay  or  they  will  not 
work  while  they  are  here.  They  tell  me  that  they 
are  waitresses  and  they  refuse  to  do  anything  ex- 
cept waiting.  Now  a  girl  here  has  to  do  other 
things  as  well;  she  has  to  take  care  of  the  dining- 
room  and  wait  on  the  guests  when  they  come  in; 
she  has  to  make  lemonade  for  them  and  serve  soft 
drinks  from  the  pantry.  The  hours  are  long  and 
indefinite  in  a  place  like  this,  but  the  work  is  not 
hard.  Surely  in  your  Alliance  of  five  hundred 
members,  there  must  be  a  few  girls  who  would 
appreciate  an  environment  like  this." 

I  thought  to  myself,  "How  little  you  under- 
stand the  waitress!"  But  I  was  spared  the  neces- 
sity of  an  answer  for  just  then  the  five  guests 
who  were  staying  for  the  night  returned  from 
motoring  and  I  became  very  busy  getting  ice 
water,  showing  them  to  their  rooms,  and  attend- 
ing to  their  many  little  wants.  At  ten  o'clock  I 
was  free  to  retire.  I  had  been  assigned  a  clean 
little  room  containing  a  white  iron  bed,  a  dresser, 
and  a  chair,  and  there  I  locked  myself  in.  As 
I  dosed  off  to  sleep,  I  heard  one  of  the  women 
servants  splashing  about  in  the  bathroom  which 
was  next  to  my  room.  I  was  glad  to  discover 
the  next  day  that  this  bath  was  clean  and  reserved 
for  the  women  servants  only. 

The  following  morning,  I  arose  at  half  past 


The  Meadow  Lark  175 

six  and  after  a  somewhat  hasty  toilet,  breakfasted 
at  seven  o'clock  in  the  servants'  dining-room. 
The  food  was  good  and  everything  about  the 
meal  was  very  clean,  in  marked  contrast  with  con- 
ditions in  the  other  restaurant  in  which  I  had 
worked.  On  the  big  porch  I  served  breakfast 
to  the  five  guests  and  in  the  dining  room  to  the 
family  of  three.  Then  I  swept  and  dusted  and 
put  in  order  the  immense  dining  roorri  and  also 
the  dining  porch.  The  manager  had  been  with- 
out help  for  several  days  and  now  I  was  the  only 
waitress.  The  room  was  very  dirty  and  by  the 
time  I  had  it  cleaned,  it  was  time  to  serve  lunch- 
eon. There  were  several  extra  guests  for  this 
meal  and  I  was  busy  until  half  past  two.  The 
day  was  very  warm  and  when  I  had  straightened 
the  dining  room,  I  prepared  to  go  upstairs  for 
a  rest.  The  manager  then  asked  me  to  clean  the 
men's  grill. 

"I  am  tired,"  I  said,  "I  will  do  it  tomorrow." 
He  showed  that  he  was  angry.  I  did  not  al- 
low that  to  bother  me  in  the  least  but  calmly 
walked  up  the  back  stairs.  "Too  much  Alliance 
and  too  much  Union!"  I  heard  him  mutter  as 
he  turned  away. 

At  half  past  five  I  was  back  on  duty.  There 
were  eleven  guests  for  dinner  besides  the  family 
and  I  did  not  get  through  until  half  past  nine. 
The  meals  had  to  be  served  very  carefully  here 


176  The  Woman  Who  Waits 

and  "service"  takes  time.  For  some  reason  the 
manager's  wife  did  not  eat  at  the  regular  time 
and  I  was  asked  to  serve  her  after  I  had  finished 
with  all  the  others.  I  was  doing  the  work  of  two 
waitresses  but  that  seemed  to  entitle  me  to  no 
consideration  either  from  the  guests  or  the  man- 
ager. "What  would  happen  to  the  girls  if  there 
were  no  Alliance  or  no  Union!"  I  thought  indig- 
nantly. "Their  organizations  protect  them 
from  injustice.  No  wonder  girls  will  not  work 
here!" 

But  I  did  not  keep  my  independent  attitude 
long.  I  became  intensely  interested  in  the  work 
and  I  learned  to  like  the  manager.  He  was  a 
nervous  man,  quick  tempered  and  often  unrea- 
sonable, but  it  was  because  he  failed  to  understand 
the  waitress.  He  loved  the  Meadow  Lark  Golf 
Club  as  though  he  had  created  it.  He  who  had 
always  been  the  manager  of  hotels  and  restau- 
rants had  longed  to  be  an  architect.  The  beauty 
of  Meadow  Lark  appealed  to  his  aesthetic  sensi- 
bility and  he  was  overjoyed  to  find  that  I  appreci- 
ated it  as  he  did.  I  soon  saw  that  he  was  being 
hard  driven,  harder  even  than  he  was  driving  us, 
by  the  directors  of  the  club  who  did  not  under- 
stand his  problems  any  better  than  he  understood 
ours.  The  house  committee  kept  warning  him 
to  keep   down  expenses;  he   was   getting  along 


The  Meadow  Lark  177 

with  an  Insufficient  kitchen  force  but  was  expected 
to  turn  out  only  the  best  results. 

I  found  myself  working  even  longer  hours  than 
those  demanded  by  the  manager.  The  artistic 
perfection  of  the  place  made  so  strong  an  appeal 
that  I  could  not  endure  to  see  the  tables  badly 
arranged  nor  the  dining  room  out  of  order.  I 
gathered  and  arranged  flowers  to  place  before  the 
mirrors  on  the  buffets  because  of  the  pleasure  it 
gave  me  to  see  them  there.  I  followed  up  the 
extra  girls  who  came  in  for  the  week  end  to  see 
that  they  cleaned  up  well  and  did  not  leave  spilled 
water  upon  the  tables  or  buffets,  and  I  kept  an 
eye  on  the  entire  dining  room  in  anticipation  of 
all  needs,  instead  of  concentrating  upon  my  own 
individual  problem. 

The  members  of  Meadow  Lark  appeared  to 
be  wealthy  Americans,  better  bred  than  the 
patrons  of  the  average  Loop  restaurant  although 
they  said  "Was  you?"  frequently  and  their  con- 
versations at  meals  were  dull  and  stupid.  I  have 
a  little  Jewish  friend  who  lives  In  a  small  west- 
ern city  and  once  when  she  was  visiting  me,  she 
remarked,  "These  people  here  look  just  like  those 
we  see  on  the  streets  back  home."  And  I,  like 
my  little  friend,  found  the  members  of  the 
Meadow  Lark  Club  just  like  the  society  folks  I 
had  known  back  home  in  my  little  western  city. 


178  The  Woman  Who  Waits 

The  women  were  pathetic  creatures.  They 
seemed  to  have  no  real  interest  in  life.  The 
men  had  their  golf  which  they  really  enjoyed  but 
most  of  the  women  sat  around  with  their  knit- 
ting talking  about  trivial  matters,  plainly  bored 
to  death  with  each  other.  At  dinner,  in  spite 
of  the  cocktails  and  highballs,  both  men  and 
women  were  listless  and  uninterested,  and  yet 
these  dinners  cost  the  host  fifty  or  seventy-five 
dollars.  And  when  they  danced  it  was  without 
joy  or  spontaneity. 

I  wondered  why  they  had  the  club  house,  why 
the  beautiful  furnishings  and  perfect  appoint- 
ments, why  they  spent  so  much  money  on  pleas- 
ure that  was  obviously  no  pleasure.  And  I  de- 
cided that  perhaps  if  the  women  had  some  real 
work  to  do,  some  real  interest  in  hfe,  then  pleas- 
ure would  be  a  genuine  recreation.  For  I  am 
convinced  that  there  are  thousands  of  people, 
like  the  members  of  the  Meadow  Lark  Club,  who 
are  spending  thousands  of  dollars  every  day  on 
pleasure  that  brings  them  no  real  joy  nor  satis- 
faction, and  I  cannot  help  speculating  on  what 
might  be  accomplished  if  this  great  stream  of 
wasted  energy  could  be  directed  along  other 
channels. 

The  manager  of  Meadow  Lark  was  subjected 
to  many  petty  annoyances.  Members  were  sup- 
posed to  make  reservations  in  advance  for  meals 


The  Meadow  Lark  179 

and  rooms  but  they  dropped  in  at  any  time  with- 
out warning  and  expected  every  attention.  One 
Saturday  night  there  were  only  forty  reserva- 
tions for  dinner  and  between  sixty  and  seventy 
people  came.  There  was  no  time  in  which  to 
get  in  extra  help;  the  kitchen  help  that  had  been 
working  in  peace  arjd  harmony  began  to  quarrel 
among  themselves.  The  manager  was  distracted 
and  chaos  reigned.  I  did  the  work  of  three  wait- 
resses besides  keeping  an  eye  on  the  entire  din- 
ing room  and  trying  to  expedite  things  in  the 
kitchen.  I  made  the  iced  tea  and  also  served  the 
drinks  from  the  locker  rooms  at  the  tables  where 
there  were  extra  waitresses.  The  members  ate 
on  serenely  unconscious  of  the  havoc  in  the 
kitchen. 

We  had  provided  wild  flowers  as  decorations 
for  this  dinner  and  when  I  was  arranging  them 
for  the  tables,  Kitty,  a  waitress,  said  to  me, 
"Can't  these  folks  afford  any  good  flowers  In- 
stead of  them  weeds!" 

Kitty  was  not  alone  in  her  views.  Just  before 
dinner  one  of  the  hostesses  of  the  evening,  a 
slender,  fragile  young  matron  with  a  dead  white 
skin  and  discontented  lips,  came  to  me  and  de- 
manded : 

"Which  is  my  table?" 

"This  one  near  the  door." 

"Take   those   flowers   off,"   said   she   pettishly, 


l8o  The  Woman  Who  Waits 

"I've  brought  my  own,"  and  she  handed  me  a 
huge  tissue  covered  bouquet. 

I  moved  the  wild  flowers  to  a  buffet  and  sub- 
stituted on  her  table,  the  pink  rosebuds.  All 
evening  they  nodded  there  as  pale,  as  fragile,  as 
altogether  artificial  as  the  young  woman  herself. 

Another  hostess  entered  and  when  she  saw 
the  table  we  had  prepared  for  her,  she  said: 

"I  won't  have  it,  it  is  square  and  I  want  a 
round  one." 

One  morning  I  was  serving  breakfast  to  a  man 
alone  on  the  porch  and  he  said  to  me: 

"You  stay  out  here  all  the  time,  don't  you?" 

"Yes." 

"Pretty  soft!"  said  he,  "that's  what  I  call 
pretty  soft!" 

"Yes,"  I  answered,  "if  working  from  the  time 
I  get  up  in  the  morning  until  I  go  to  bed  at  night 
for  not  quite  nine  dollars  a  week  is  soft,  then 
this  is  a  soft  job.  Perhaps  you  have  never  tried 
to  see  how  much  you  could  buy  for  nine  dollars 
and  found  out  how  little." 

"There  may  be  something  in  that,"  said  he, 
and  glancing  at  the  magazine  I  had  in  my  hand, 
he  added,  "What  are  you  reading?" 

"The  New  Republic." 

"Never  heard  of  it.     Where  did  you  get  it?" 

"I  brought  it  with  me.     There  isn't  anything 


The  Meadow  Lark  i8i 

to  read  here,  not  even  the  daily  paper.  Doesn't 
anyone  in  this  club  ever  read?" 

He  looked  at  me  over  his  spectacles. 

"I  guess  not,"  he  answered,  "we  aren't  the 
reading  kind.  Is  that  a  socialist  magazine?  I 
suppose  you  are  a  socialist." 

Just  then  the  manager  called  to  me.  I  found 
out  later  why.     Kitty  had  said  to  him: 

"Fannie  is  out  there  on  the  porch  tryin'  to  make 
a  date  with  one  of  the  members." 

This  girl  had  come  to  Meadow  Lark  after  I 
had  been  there  alone  for  four  days.  With  her 
advent,  a  different  moral  tone  pervaded  the  serv- 
ants' dining  room.  She  diffused  about  her  an 
atmosphere  of  cynicism  and  indecency  that  had 
been  entirely  absent  until  her  coming.  The  men 
servants,  who  had  been  perfectly  respectful  while 
only  decent  women  were  present,  responded  in- 
stantly to  the  new  tone  even  though  she  was  old 
and  ugly,  had  several  teeth  missing,  was  short- 
sighted, and  had  feet  bulging  with  bunions. 

Every  time  she  saw  me  exchanging  a  civil  word 
with  a  guest,  she  leered  at  me  and  said: 

"How  much  will  you  get  out  of  that  one,  Fan- 
nie?" or,  "Can't  you  do  enough  business  in  the 
kitchen  without  goin'  into  the  parlor?"  A  world 
of  social  intercourse  that  did  not  involve  the  per- 
verted sex  game  did  not  exist  for  her. 


1 82  The  Woman  Who  Waits 

The  other  servants  at  Meadow  Lark  were  of 
the  upper  class  type.  All  were  English  except 
one  American  pantry  maid  and  the  Swedish  cook, 
whose  husband,  the  locker  man,  was,  however,  a 
Cockney.  The  conversations  in  their  dining 
room  were  most  intelligent.  They  discussed  the 
questions  of  the  day  and  lamented  because  there 
were  no  newspapers  at  Meadow  Lark. 

One  day  when  one  of  the  pantry  maids  had 
been  severely  reprimanded  by  the  manager,  she 
said  at  the  dinner  table : 

"I  thank  God  every  day  that  my  husband  my 
four  boys  are  dead.  We  think  it  is  hard  to  see 
them  die  but  God  knows !  Living  troubles  are 
harder  to  bear.  You  don't  have  to  worry  about 
those  that  are  dead." 

"He  was  mean  to  you  today,  Mary,"  said  the 
cook  sympathetically,  "but  I  was  glad  that  you 
did  not  answer  him  back.  I  make  it  a  rule  never 
to  answer  back  nor  to  act  sore  no  matter  what  a 
boss  says  nor  how  unreasonable  he  is.  I  answer 
back  nice  and  pleasant.  It  is  the  only  way  to  keep 
a  job." 

On  this  particular  day  everything  had  gone 
wrong.  Alfred,  the  dishwasher,  had  been  recov- 
ering from  a  spree  with  which  he  had  celebrated 
his  "off"  day,  and  his  nerves  were  completely  out 
of  tune.     He  slammed  the  dishes  around  until 


The  Meadow  Lark  183 

we  wondered  how  there  could  be  any  whole  one 
left.      Finally  the  manager  discharged  him. 

When  he  was  ready  to  go,  he  came  back  to  the 
kitchen  for  his  money.  He  was  dressed  in  his 
best  and  carried  his  working  clothes  in  a  little 
bundle  under  his  arm.  They  were  all  he  had  in 
the  world,  A  working  man  "dressed  up"  is  al- 
ways a  sight  to  move  one  to  tears.  Poor  Alfred 
haunted  me  all  day;  I  have  often  wondered  since 
what  becomes  of  these  poor  derelicts. 

In  all  of  the  golf  clubs  there  is  a  rule  against 
tipping.  This  is  not  fair  to  the  steady  girls. 
The  extra  girls  who  were  hired  for  Saturday  and 
Sunday  at  Meadow  Lark  received  $2.50  per  day 
and  their  car  fare.  I  worked  for  $35.00  per 
month,  not  quite  four  dollars  more  per  week  and 
I  put  in  all  of  my  time  and  had  all  of  the  respon- 
sibility and  all  of  the  drudgery.  I  also  had  to 
pay  my  own  railroad  fare. 

The  position  of  a  steady  girl  at  a  club  is  like 
that  of  a  house  servant.  I  averaged  thirteen 
or  fourteen  hours  per  day  at  Meadow  Lark  and 
never  had  any  time  to  call  my  own  if  I  remained 
in  the  building.  Even  when  I  went  to  my  room 
to  dress  or  to  rest  a  few  moments,  someone  was 
sure  to  call  me  to  ask  about  something. 

A  golf  club  is  a  lonely  place  for  a  waitress  for 
she  has  no  resources  within  herself.     She  does 


1 84  The  TFoman  TFho  JVaits 

not  read  and  when  her  work  is  done,  she  longs 
for  the  dance  hall  or  the  movie,  or  for  the  ex- 
citement of  merely  mingling  with  the  crowds  on 
the  streets.  And  so  for  the  same  reasons  that 
it  is  difficult  to  keep  house  servants,  it  is  difficult 
to  get  a  girl  to  work  "steady"  at  a  golf  club. 
She  would  rather  earn  $5.00  at  the  week  end, 
pick  up  a  dollar  at  a  lunch  job  in  the  city  a  few 
days  a  week  w^hen  she  feels  like  work  and  have 
her  freedom  and  the  life  of  the  city. 

Then,  too,  at  a  golf  club  the  attitude  of  the 
patron  towards  the  waitress  is  more  convention- 
alized. To  him  the  waitress  is  a  servant.  "I 
don't  want  to  work  there  no  more,"  said  a  girl 
In  speaking  of  a  certain  club,  "those  folks  out 
there  never  see  you.  They  treat  you  like  so 
much  dirt."  Then  she  added,  "There  is  no  place 
like  the  city  to  work.  In  any  old  hash  house, 
folks'll  talk  to  you  and  act  as  though  you  was 
somebody  and  slip  you  a  dime  once  in  a  while. 
None  o'  them  swell  clubs  for  me !  You  ain't 
anybody  and  you  ain't  got  a  chance  to  pick  up 
even  a  nickel." 


CHAPTER  XV 

THE    waitresses'    ALLIANCE 

The  Waitresses'  Alliance  was  organized  in 
March,  19 15.  The  objects  of  this  Alliance  as  set 
forth  in  the  Constitution  and  By-Laws  are  as  fol- 
lows : — 

I — To  provide  a  common  meeting  place  for 
women  who  make  their  living  by  serving  in  Res- 
taurants, Lunch  Rooms,  Cafes,  Hotels,  and  other 
public  eating  places,  or  by  assisting  caterers  at 
social  affairs; 

2 — To  improve  Its  members  mentally,  physi- 
cally, and  morally,  and  to  obtain  for  Its  members 
proper  working  conditions; 

3 — To  facilitate  the  honorable  and  profitable 
transaction  of  business  by  the  members  of  the 
Organization,  as  a  whole,  with  employers; 

4 — To  protect  the  individual  members  from 
unjust  treatment  on  the  part  of  unscruplous  per- 
sons; 

5 — To  confer  with  employers  and  arbitrate 
differences  and  otherwise  advance  the  Industrial 
Welfare  of  all  Its  members; 

185 


1 86  The  Woman  Who  Waits 

6 — To  create  a  community  of  interests  and  to 
maintain  a  reasonable  standard  of  wages  and 
working  conditions; 

7 — To  do  everything  possible  to  obtain  em- 
ployment for  its  members. 

In  19 1 7  when  I  was  a  member,  the  Alliance 
was  located  in  a  room  in  one  of  the  large  build- 
ings on  West  Washington  Street.  This  room 
was  large  and  pleasant  and  furnished  cheerfully 
with  rugs,  pictures,  chairs,  and  cretonne  window 
curtains. 

There  were  approximately  500  members  in 
the  Alliance  at  this  time.  The  initiation  fee  was 
$2.00  and  the  dues  thereafter  were  fifty  cents 
per  month. 

Mrs.  Hilda  McLean,  a  retired  waitress,  was 
financial  secretary  and  general  manager.  The 
Alliance  paid  her  a  salary  of  $10.00  per  week 
which  was  raised  to  $15.00  during  July  and  Au- 
gust. The  restaurant  managers,  when  in  need 
of  a  waitress,  telephoned  Hilda  and  she  did  her 
best  to  fill  all  orders.  She  had  calls  for  all  sorts 
of  girls  but  she  did  her  greatest  amount  of  busi- 
ness in  supplying  extra  girls  for  lunch  jobs.  I 
have  known  her  to  send  out  as  many  as  twenty 
girls  in  less  than  forty-five  minutes  to  different 
places.  In  winter  sometimes  there  were  not 
enough  jobs  for  all  so  the  first  comers  got  them, 


The  Waitresses'  Alliance  187 

but  in  summer  there  were  always  more  jobs  than 
were  girls  to  fill  them.  Lunch  jobs  had  been 
paying  seventy-five  cents  but  during  the  summer 
of  19 1 7,  Hilda  made  the  employers  pay  one  dol- 
lar for  an  extra  lunch  girl. 

Sometimes  it  was  hard  to  get  the  girls  to  go 
to  certain  places.  "I  don't  want  to  work,  there," 
some  one  would  say,  "I  want  to  work  where  I 
can  at  least  pick  up  one  extra  dime."  "Not  that 
place  for  me,  I  can't  stand  that  fellow,"  or  "Do 
you  think  I'll  work  under  that  damn  red  head?" 
(meaning  the  head  waitress),  or  "I  don't  want  to 
go  there,  the  trays  are  too  heavy." 

But  Hilda  was  a  diplomat  and  before  they 
knew  it,  she  had  overcome  their  objections,  they 
had  an  Alliance  card  in  their  hands,  and  were  out 
in  the  hall  pushing  the  button  for  the  elevator. 
Very  often  they  would  fail  to  "show  up"  at  the 
place  where  they  had  been  sent,  and  then  Hilda 
would  have  trouble  in  appeasing  the  irate  man- 
agers and  not  losing  the  house  for  the  Alliance. 
Sometimes  the  girls  would  go  but  fail  to  make 
good  on  the  job  and  this  gave  the  /\lliance  a 
bad  name.  "We  have  lost  that  house,"  Hilda 
would  say,  "Caroline  spoiled  it  for  us;  she  ought 
to  be  ashamed  of  herself!"  And  if  Caroline 
continued  to  spoil  jobs,  she  would  be  asked  to 
resign  from  the  Alliance. 


1 88  The  Woman  Who  Waits 

Most  of  the  girls,  however,  took  a  great  In- 
terest in  their  AlHance  and  were  jealous  of  its 
prestige.  One  afternoon  a  South  Side  manager 
phoned  for  an  extra  supper  girl.  "Who  wants 
to  go?"  asked  Hilda,  as  she  hung  up  the  re- 
ceiver. 

"I  do,"  said  a  nice  looking  young  girl,  "but  I 
will  have  to  go  home  first  and  clean  up." 

"You  should  worry,"  remarked  someone, 
"you're  clean  enough,  and  anyway  it's  just  for 
tonight." 

"I  guess  not,"  said  the  young  girl,  "do  you 
know  what  they  say  about  us  Alliance  girls? 
They  say  we  are  just  filthy  dirty,"  and  she 
scrambled  into  her  coat  and  rushed  out  of  the 
door. 

Every  Thursday  at  three  o'clock  there  was  a 
business  meeting  at  the  Alliance,  at  which  the 
president  presided.  The  order  of  business  was 
much  the  same  as  that  of  any  other  Woman's 
Club  and  was  carried  on  in  a  very  able  manner. 
When  the  business  had  been  transacted,  the  new 
members  were  asked  to  state  what  the  Alliance 
had  done  for  them,  and,  in  much  the  same  manner 
as  the  convert  at  the  revival  meeting,  the  new 
member  gave  her  experience. 

"I  am  glad  to  tell  what  the  Alliance  has  done 
for  me,"  said  a  pretty  Swedish  girl  one  Thurs- 
day.    "I  came  to  the  city  six  months  ago  and  I 


The  Waitresses'  Alliance  189 

walked  the  streets  broke  because  I  couldn't  get 
a  job.  Then  a  girl  in  a  restaurant  where  I  tried 
to  get  work  told  me  about  the  Alliance  and  I  came 
up  here  to  Hilda.  'But  I  have  no  money  to  pay 
the  initiation  fee!'  I  said  to  Hilda  and  she  said, 
'That  makes  no  difference,  you  work  first  and 
pay  afterwards.'  And  ever  since  I  have  had 
work,  all  I  could  do,  and  a  nice  job  all  summer 
at  Lakewood.  And  now  I  have  money  and  I  can 
pay  the  Alliance  and  that  is  all  what  the  Alliance 
has  done  for  me,"  and  the  pretty  Swedish  girl 
smiled  through  her  tears  as  she  sat  down  amid 
loud  applause. 

The  Alliance  Is  an  employment  agency  but  It 
has  another  equally  important  function.  It  pro- 
vides a  common  meeting  place  for  the  exchange 
of  ideas.  Every  afternoon  the  members  gather 
at  the  Alliance  to  visit  and  gossip  together.  The 
short-hour  girl  is  off  duty  for  the  day  at  half 
past  two  each  day  and  even  the  steady  girl  gets 
a  little  time  off  during  the  afternoon  and  she 
always  has  one  whole  afternoon  during  the  week 
for  herself.  This  room  is  the  natural  meeting 
place  for  these  girls  who  live  In  such  widely  scat- 
tered homes  that  anything  like  house  to  house 
visiting  Is  impossible  for  them.  The  conversa- 
tions at  these  meetings  set  the  standards  for  the 
group. 

For  example  a  waitress  will  say,  "I  can't  stay 


190  The  Woman  Who  Waits 

any  longer  today,  girls,  I've  got  to  take  my  kid 
to  the  dentist.  I  don't  want  her  to  have  teeth 
like  mine.  Isn't  it  great  how  the  schools  teach 
such  things  now?  Nobody  ever  told  me  how  to 
take  care  of  my  teeth  when  I  was  a  kid."  And 
this  will  open  up  a  discussion  about  rules  of 
health  in  which  ideas  of  real  value  are  passed 
from  one  to  another. 

Through  the  Alliance  are  arranged  the  dances 
and  card  parties  that  provide  entertainment  and 
social  recognition  for  the  group.  I  was  a  mem- 
ber of  the  committee  which  arranges  the  Alliance 
card  party  in  the  fall  of  19 17.  Some  of  the 
girls  wanted  to  have  drinks  served  but  Hilda 
would  not  permit  it.  "We  won't  have  no 
drinks,"  said  she,  "People  think  that  waitresses 
can't  have  a  respectable  party  and  we  will  show 
them.  This  is  going  to  be  a  nice  quiet  party  and 
we  are  going  to  invite  the  reporter  from  the 
Tribune  to  come  and  give  us  a  write  up," 

And  a  nice  quiet  party  it  was  with  dancing  for 
the  younger  members,  a  "Bunco"  game  for  the 
older  ones,  and  a  generous  supper  of  potato  salad, 
spaghetti  and  layer  cake  for  all  at  midnight. 
Everyone  wore  a  paper  cap  and  blew  a  noise- 
making  instrument  but  for  soberness  and  respec- 
tability, it  could  compete  with  any  small  town 
church  social. 


The  Waitresses'  Alliance  191 

The  Alliance  is  of  inestimable  value  to  the 
girls.  "When  we  first  come  to  the  city,"  they 
say,  "and  do  not  know  about  the  Alliance,  we 
must  walk  the  streets  for  jobs  or  go  to  the  em- 
ployment agencies  and  they  skin  us  to  the  bone." 
The  Alliance  makes  a  quick  connection  between 
the  girl  and  the  job,  and  moreover,  Hilda  makes 
it  her  business  to  know  the  character  of  the  place 
which  sends  In  the  call  for  help  and  she  sends  out 
the  girls  best  suited  to  the  job.  The  old,  the  in- 
experienced, the  ugly,  and  the  inefficient,  are  kept 
as  a  reserve  force  to  send  out  to  fill  gaps  and  to 
meet  emergency  calls.  That  is  why  the  service 
at  banquets  and  extra  luncheons  is  always  poor. 
But  so  clev^er  is  Hilda  in  her  collective  bargain- 
ing for  the  group,  that  these  reserve  workers  are 
paid  a  wage  when  they  do  work  which  is  suffi- 
cient to  enable  them  to  live  although  they  may 
have  employment  only  part  time.  In  summer 
Hilda  keeps  them  moving  constantly  and  it  is 
only  in  the  dull  winter  months  that  there  is  any 
danger  of  hardship.  Surplus  in  wages  provides  a 
form  of  unemployment  insurance. 

When  an  Alliance  member  cannot  get  work 
and  is  in  real  need,  the  organization  helps  her 
out.  Also  when  she  is  ill,  the  sick  committee 
calls  upon  her  and  sees  to  it  that  she  is  properly 
provided    for.     At   every   Thursday   meeting   a 


11 


192  The  Woman  Who  Waits 

basket  is  passed  and  each  girl  present  drops  in  a 
few  pennies  which  are  used  to  buy  flowers  for 
the  members  who  are  ill. 

The  Alliance  compels  the  patronage  of  the  res- 
taurant keeper.  It  is  a  great  convenience  for  him 
to  be  able  to  step  to  the  telephone,  call  the  Alli- 
ance, and  in  less  than  half  an  hour  have  a  waitress 
there  in  an  apron  ready  for  work.  He  loses  no 
time  in  waiting  for  an  answer  to  his  advertise- 
ment in  the  newspaper  or  for  some  girl  to  come 
in  off  the  street  in  answer  to  the  sign  "Waitress 
Wanted,"  which  he  has  put  up  in  his  window. 

Not  more  than  25  per  cent  of  the  waitresses 
in  Chicago  are  organized  yet  those  who  are,  are 
a  power  in  themselves.  If  all  were  organized 
they  would  indeed  be  an  enormous  force.  The 
Waitresses'  Union  and  Waitresses'  Alliance  have 
won  for  the  group  the  eight  hour  working  day 
and  the  relatively  high  wages.  The  girls  on  the 
outside  accept  the  benefits  which  these  organized 
workers  have  won  for  them. 

I  shall  not  attempt  to  tell  anything  about  the 
Waitresses'  Union  because  I  did  not  belong  to 
it.  After  I  became  an  office  executive  I  tried  as 
an  outsider  to  get  some  information  about  it. 
The  attempt  was  worse  than  useless.  I  was  told 
things  that  I  knew  absolutely  were  not  true.  I 
gave  it  up,  and  as  this  book  is  an  account  of  what 
I  know  I  have  judged  it  wiser  to  make  no  state- 


The  Waitresses'  Alliance  193 

ments  whatever  about  the  Waitresses'  Union, 
except  that  in  my  opinion  there  is  httle  or  no  dif- 
ference between  it  and  the  Alliance.  I  worked 
with  Alliance  girls,  Union  girls,  and  "Scabs,"  and 
the  cultural  status  of  all  was  the  same  but  the 
most  intelligent,  forceful  and  efficient  girls  be- 
longed to  one  or  the  other  of  these  organizations. 


CHAPTER  XVI 

TIPPING 

I  RECEIVED  my  first  tip  on  the  first  day  that  I 
was  a  waitress.  A  shabby,  dissipated  wreck  of 
a  man  came  in  and  sat  down  on  one  of  the  stools 
at  my  counter.  To  my  surprise,  he  ordered  a 
forty-five  cent  meal.  I  became  very  busy  and  I 
did  not  at  once  remove  his  dirty  dishes.  A  boy 
sat  down  on  the  stool  vacated  by  this  man  and 
I  took  his  order.  When  I  was  attempting  to 
clear  a  place  for  it,  I  saw  a  greasy,  dirty  nickel 
on  the  counter.  The  boy  gave  it  a  little  push 
towards  me  and  said,  "I  guess  this  is  yours." 

"I  thought  it  was  yours,"  I  said,  and  then  I 
realized  that  I  had  been  given  a  tip.  I  knew 
that  it  was  customary  to  tip  a  waitress  in  more 
fashionable  eating  places  but  that  it  was  done 
here,  was  a  great  surprise  to  me.  Presently  two 
mail  carriers  came  in,  one  white  and  one  colored, 
and  each,  when  he  left,  gave  me  a  dime.  I  had 
tipped  colored  boys  many  times  but  it  was  in- 
deed a  new  experience  to  have  one  tip  me. 

The  second  place  that  I  worked  was  Foyle's 
194 


Tipping  1 95 

Tea  Shop.  One  day  when  the  waitresses  were 
eating  their  lunch  in  the  rear  of  the  room,  a 
plainly  dressed  woman  entered  and  sat  down  at  a 
table  near  the  front. 

"There's  a  lady  at  your  table,  Florence,"  said 
a  waitress  to  a  pretty  girl  who  sat  next  to 
her. 

"I  don't  care  if  there  is,"  said  Florence,  "I'm 
tired  and  I'm  going  to  eat  my  lunch.  Somebody 
else  can  wait  on  her." 

In  a  few  minutes  she  returned  to  the  wait- 
resses' table  and  showed,  lying  on  the  palm  of 
her  hand,  a  bright  new  dime. 

"Now  aren't  you  sorry,  Florence?"  she  asked, 
and  then  added,  "All  she  asked  for  was  a  bowl 
of  soup." 

"Just  my  luck!"  said  Florence  with  a  little 
grimace  as  she  went  on  eating. 

"That's  a  movie  ticket,"  said  the  other  girl  as 
she  slid  the  dime  into  her  apron  pocket. 

But  it  was  not  until  I  reached  the  Cafe  des  Re- 
flections that  I  began  to  realize  the  enormous  im- 
portance of  the  tip  in  the  life  of  the  waitress.  It 
was  nothing  unusual  there,  for  a  two  meal  girl 
to  make  $i8.oo  or  $20.00  per  week  in  tips,  and 
the  steady  girl  made  still  more.  I  myself,  as  a 
two  meal  girl,  made  $8.15  in  tips  in  five  days,  and 
I  was  inexperienced  and  had  the  poorest  station 
in  the  house. 


I 


196  The  Woman  Who  Waits 

"Did  you  make  good  today,  girlie?"  someone 
would  always  ask. 

"I  would  tell  them  how  much  I  made. 

"Well,  you  are  new.  You  will  do  better  after 
a  while.  The  new  girl  always  gets  the  front  sta- 
tion and  it's  no  good." 

A  station  is  a  group  of  tables  that  Is  assigned 
to  you.  A  back  station  is  always  better  than  a 
front  station  and  "deuces"  (tables  for  two)  are 
better  than  larger  tables.  "I've  got  them  three 
deuces  at  the  back  of  the  room,"  a  girl  will  say, 
"and  every  time  I  have  a  couple  sittin'  at  them 
three  deuces,  that  means  three  quarters  for  me. 
You'd  probably  only  get  ten  cents,  where  I'd  get 
a  quarter,  because  you  ain't  on  to  the  game." 

"I  can  even  get  a  tip  out  of  a  woman,"  another 
will  say.  "I  just  stick  around  and  act  so  darn 
nice  that  she  can't  resist.  But  whether  it's  a  man 
or  a  woman,  you  got  to  stick  around  and  act  like 
you  expected  it,  or  you  won't  get  no  tip." 

I  was  never  very  successful  at  working  peo^-le 
for  tips  and  never  made  over  half  what  the  other 
girls  made.  One  night  at  Laconia  Park  I  had 
an  order  from  a  man  for  a  pitcher  of  Apollinaris 
water  and  grape  juice.  Owing  to  the  wretched 
service  at  the  soda  fountain,  I  was  a  long  time 
getting  it.  Later  the  same  man  ordered  a  round 
of  sandwiches  for  his  party,  five  in  number. 

"That  was  a  nice  party  you  had,  kid,"  said 


Tipping  197 

the  girl  next  to  me,  "how  much  did  you  get  out 
of  them?" 

"Twenty  cents,"  I  answered. 

"You  didn't  know  how  to  handle  him,  then. 
I've  had  him  several  times  and  he's  good  for  a 
half  or  a  dollar  always." 

And  one  morning  at  breakfast  in  the  servants' 
dining  room,  at  the  Meadow  Lark  Golf  Club,  the 
Cockney  who  had  charge  of  the  men's  lockers, 
said  to  me,  "Well,  Fannie,  how  much  did  Mr.  L. 
come  through  with  last  night  in  the  dining  room?" 

"Not  a  cent,"  I  said  cheerfully. 

"Well  then,"  he  said,  "you  didn't  give  him 
service." 

I  protested  mildly  here. 

"Well  then,  you  didn't  talk  to  him.  That's 
where  you  lost  out.  You  should  have  talked  to 
him  about  his  game.  (The  Cockney  said 
"gyme.")  No  matter  whether  you  know  any- 
thing about  golf  or  not  you  must  say,  'i\nd  how 
many  did  you  make  it  in  today?'  and  if  he  says 
'87,'  you  say,  'well,  now  that's  not  bad,  you'll  do 
better  next  time,  no  doubt,  Mr.  L.,  and  anyway 
you've  got  a  magnificent  swing.  I  was  looking 
out  just  as  you  drove  off  the  ninth  tee  and  I  must 
say,  Mr.  L.,  you've  surely  got  a  swing.'  Now 
that's  the  talk  that  brings  them.  After  that  he'd 
be  good  for  a  half  or  maybe  a  dollar.  He  ex- 
pects a  waitress  to  entertain  him  at  dinner." 


198  The  IV Oman  Who  Waits 

During  my  experience  as  a  waitress,  I  learned 
that  a  girl  can  make  tips  anywhere  if  she  under- 
stands the  game.  I  also  learned  that  the  poor 
man  tips  just  as  frequently  as  the  rich  man  and 
that  his  tips  are  just  as  large.  The  standard  tip 
all  over  Chicago  is  a  dime  whether  it  be  at  a 
hash  house  or  at  Usher  Lane's  exclusiv-e  tea  room 
for  men. 

In  fact  at  Usher  Lane's  I  found  the  tips 
smaller  and  less  frequent  than  at  any  other  place 
where  I  worked.  This  was  a  matter  of  great 
importance  to  the  waitress  because  the  lunch  serv- 
ice there  lasts  but  two  hours.  Owing  to  the  long 
distance  to  the  kitchen,  the  poor  management,  and 
the  number  of  dishes,  doilies,  finger  bowls,  and 
decorations  required  to  serve  a  luncheon,  It  is  im- 
possible for  the  average  girl  to  serve  more  than 
six  or  eight  people  in  that  time.  Often  men  will 
sit  at  a  girl's  table  and  smoke  and  chat  the  entire 
two  hours  and  then  leave  without  giving  her  even 
a  dime.  Of  course  while  the  seats  are  occupied, 
she  has  no  chance  of  getting  other  customers  who 
might  give  her  a  tip. 

Usually  a  man  gives  a  tip  graciously  but  some- 
times he  is  quite  disagreeable  about  it.  One  day 
a  man  at  Lane's  said  to  me,  "I  have  no  change, 
but  if  you  will  meet  me  at  the  cashier's  desk,  I 
will  give  you  a  dime." 


Tipping  199^ 

"Oh,  no,  thank  you,"  I  said,  "I'd  rather  not," 
and  my  face  was  scarlet, 

"All  right,"  he  answered,  and  walked  away. 
His  whole  manner  had  said  plainly  "I  don't  want 
to  give  you  this  tip.  It  is  a  great  nuisance.  I 
only  give  it  because  custom  has  decreed  that  I 
must." 

However,  there  are  men  at  Lane's  who  give 
generous  tips  and  give  them  graciously.  The 
very  first  man  I  waited  on  there  gave  me  a  quar- 
ter for  serving  him  a  seventy  cent  luncheon.  But 
I  got  the  quarter  in  exchange  for  a  smile. 

It  was  my  first  day  and  I  was  feeling  very  fool- 
ish and  uncomfortable  in  my  stiff  collar  and 
apron  as  I  stood  waiting  for  a  customer.  All 
around  me  were  the  sort  of  men  I  had  been  ac- 
customed to  meet  socially.  Now  I  was  about 
to  meet  them  a  waitress.  I  was  smiling  at  a  joke 
I  was  having  all  to  myself  when  an  usher  woke 
me  up  by  saying,  "Take  that  man's  order." 

I  walked  over  to  a  nice  looking  young  fellow 
and,  in  spite  of  myself,  the  smile  wouldn't  be 
suppressed  as  I  tried  demurely  to  take  his  order. 
He  smiled  back,  although  he  did  not  know  why, 
and  the  quarter  was  his  token  of  appreciation. 

Another  day  at  Lane's  two  men  came  in  about 
three  o'clock  in  the  afternoon  and  asked  for 
luncheon.     It  was  after  hours  for  serving  any- 


200  The  Woman  Who  Waits 

thing  hot  but  I  went  into  the  kitchen  and  persuaded 
the  cook  to  give  them  some  fish  and  vegetables. 
It  was  Friday  and  they  had  said  that  they  were 
Cathohcs.  I  fixed  up  an  appetizing  luncheon  for 
them  and  when  I  took  it  in  they  expressed  a  great 
deal  of  pleasure  and  asked  me  to  draw  up  a  chair 
and  eat  with  them.  I  laughed  and  thanked  them 
but  said,  "It  isn't  done  here." 

When  a  woman  comes  into  a  restaurant,  the 
waitress  slowly,  and  with  a  bored  and  disgusted 
air,  takes  the  glass  of  water  and  the  pat  of  but- 
ter from  the  sideboard  and  deposits  in  non- 
chalantly in  front  of  the  patroness'  plate.  Then 
more  bored  and  more  indifferent  she  stands  hand 
on  hip  and  service  towel  in  hand  and  awaits  the 
lady's  order.  And  when  it  suits  her  convenience, 
she  brings  it. 

The  manager  has  a  hard  time  to  contend  with 
this  attitude.  To  him  a  woman  is  as  profitable 
as  a  man.  At  the  Junior  Alliance  one  day  a 
waitress  from  the  Weymouth  said,  "Our  boss 
won't  stand  for  anything  like  that.  He  has  fired 
more  than  one  girl  for  lookin'  disgusted  when 
a  woman  sits  down  at  her  table." 

But  when  a  man  comes  into  a  restaurant,  he 
always  receives  prompt  attention.  He  repre- 
sents the  possibility  of  a  tip.  The  man  who  gives 
the  tip  likes  to  give  it.  It  gives  him  a  feeling 
of  generosity,  of  expansion ;  it  establishes  between 


Tipping  201 

him  and  the  girl  to  whom  he  gives  it,  a  little  feel- 
ing of  intimacy.  It  is  true  that  this  sometimes 
leads  to  an  undesirable  familiarity  but  this  is  not 
the  rule. 

But  if  the  waitress  is  disgusted  with  the  woman 
who  does  not  tip,  her  scorn  for  the  man  who 
forgets  is  unmitigated,  "The  damn  cheap  skate  I 
if  he  doesn't  want  to  tip,  let  him  sit  at  a  lunch 
counter.  Believe  me,  if  a  guy  comes  to  my  table 
more  than  twice  without  leavin'  a  tip,  he  don't 
get  no  service  from  me." 

The  skillful  waitress  will  not  work  in  a  place 
where  the  tips  are  not  good.  For  this  reason 
and  because  of  the  low  wages,  the  most  efficient 
girls  are  not  to  be  found  at  a  place  like  Lane's. 
A  popular  priced  cafe  is  the  place  where  the 
waitress  can  make  money.  In  two  hours,  she 
can  serve  fifteen  or  twenty  people  because  she 
need  not  stop  for  frills  and  finger  bowls,  and  at 
least  half  of  those  served  will  give  her  a  ten  cent 
tip.  She  also  receives  very  good  wages  in  this 
sort  of  place  because  she  serves  so  many  people. 

If  tipping  were  abolished,  the  manager  would 
have  to  increase  the  price  of  the  food  served  so 
that  the  increase  would  cover  the  higher  wages 
that  he  would  be  obliged  to  pay  his  waitresses. 
This  would  undoubtedly  be  more  fair,  as  then  the 
wages  of  the  waitress  would  be  paid  by  all  instead 
of  by  a  few.    But  I  doubt  if  this  is  desired  by  the 


202  The  Woman  Who  Waits 

patron  and  I  know  that  it  is  not  by  the  waitress. 

I  have  asked  ev^ery  girl  with  whom  I  have  had 
an  intimate  conversation  how  she  feels  about  tip- 
ping and  always  the  answer  is  the  same,  "I  like 
to  work  where  the  'side  money'  is  good." 

"Would  you  prefer  to  work  where  the  'side 
money'  is  good  or  where  the  wages  are  good?" 

"I  like  to  'pick  up'  money,"  answers  the  girl. 

I  soon  learned  that  the  success  of  each  day  de- 
pended upon  the  tips.  If  the  money  had  been 
good,  then  at  night  when  we  were  ready  to  go 
home,  there  was  laughter  and  gaiety  in  the  little 
basement  dressing  room,  but  if  it  had  not,  then 
all  was  dull  and  spiritless. 

Tipping  is  the  gambling  factor  in  the  life  of  the 
waitress.  It  redeems  her  work  from  dull  routine 
and  drudgery  and  puts  into  it  the  problematical. 
It  is  the  same  thing  that  makes  the  man  shake 
dice  for  his  cigars  instead  of  paying  outright  for 
them.  To  get  a  tip  is,  as  William  I.  Thomas 
says,  "like  winning  a  game.  It  involves  the  same 
uncertainty.  It  has  in  it  the  element  of  chance, 
of  luck;  it  is  the  getting  something  for  nothing, 
the  legitimate  satisfaction  of  the  gaming  instinct, 
which  is  no  more  dormant  in  the  female  than  in 
the  male." 


CHAPTER  XVII 


THE  LURE   OF  DRESS 


It  was  five  o'clock  and  the  two  meal  girls  at 
the  Cafe  des  Reflections  had  returned  to  the  base- 
ment dressing  room  from  the  Russian  Tea  Room, 
the  North  American,  or  the  States'  restaurants, 
where  they  had  spent  their  leisure  time  since  half 
past  two,  and  were  rapidly  changing  street  finery 
for  demure  black  uniforms.  Marietta  was  danc- 
ing gaily  about  in  a  flowered  taffeta  petticoat  and 
pink  crepe  de  chine  camisole,  Dolly  was  coaxing, 
with  invisible  hairpins,  the  two  little  curls  on  each 
temple  to  lie  flat,  and  Mabel  and  Jennie  and 
Maude  and  Lorraine  were  putting  powder  and 
lip  stick  wherever  each  thought  it  would  be  most 
effective. 

"Look  here,  girls,"  cried  Irene,  a  lovely  tall 
girl,  as  she  held  up  for  inspection  a  clinging  gor- 
gette  gown  of  a  soft  old  rose  shade. 

Marietta  stood  still,  Dolly  gave  her  curls  a 
finishing  pat,  and  Mabel  and  Jennie  and  Maude 
and  Lorraine  stopped  powdering  their  noses  and 

203 


204  The  Woman  Who  Waits 

all  gave  little  gasps  of  admiration  and  delight, 

"Oh  where  did  you  get  it,  Irene?"  they  all  cried 
as  they  drew  up  closely  around  the  girl.  And 
instinctively  they  put  their  hands  on  the  dress  and 
caressed  it. 

"It's  lovely!  just  lovely!"  someone  said. 

"And  isn't  it  the  sweetest  shade!" 

"How  much  did  it  cost  you,  Irene?"  * 

"I  don't  dare  tell,"  replied  Irene.  "It  cost 
too  much  but  I  wanted  it."  And  she  began  put- 
ting it  tenderly  away  in  its  tissue  paper  wrap- 
pings. 

"Whose  your  friend,  Irene?"  someone  slipped 
into  the  conversation. 

Irene  gave  a  little  shrug  of  her  shoulders  as 
she  turned  the  key  in  the  locker  but  she  did  not 
resent  the  suggestion. 

The  waitresses  at  the  Cafe  des  Reflections 
were  pretty  girls,  more  the  chorus  girl  than  the 
servant  type  and,  on  the  whole,  they  were  pretty 
good  imitators  of  their  sisters  whom  we  call  "so- 
ciety girls."  They  tried  to  use  correct  English, 
attended  the  most  expensive  places  of  amusement, 
wanted  only  the  smartest  clothes,  and  bought 
them  on  twenty  dollars  a  week. 

On  Easter  Sunday  evening  a  pretty  woman  who 
wore  a  beautiful  gown  of  old  blue  taffeta  and 
white  kid  shoes  came  to  the  Hayden  Square  Tea 
Room  to  dine  with  her  husband. 


The  Lure  of  Dress  205 

"Oh,  look  at  that  girl,  Fannie  1  Isn't  that  the 
loveHest  dress!"  whispered  a  young  waitress 
named  Louise. 

The  girl  who  wore  the  dress  was  about  the 
same  age  as  Louise  but  not  so  beautiful.  Louise 
continued  to  look  and  to  admire  and  I  could  see 
that  she  was  envious.  I  assumed  that  she  was 
asking  herself  questions  something  like  these: 
"Why  can  I  not  have  these  things?  I,  too,  am 
young  and  beautiful,  full  of  life  and  the  joy  of 
living.  I  want  the  soft  pretty  things  that  make 
life  for  a  woman.  Why  can  this  woman  have 
them  when  I  can  not?" 

The  next  night  when  it  was  time  for  us  to  go, 
Louise  said  to  me,  "Stop  in  at  my  room  on  your 
way  home,  Fannie,  I  want  to  show  you  my  new 
coat." 

Louise  lived  with  some  people  of  the  laboring 
class,  in  a  little  flat  over  a  grocery  store.  Her 
room  was  just  big  enough  for  a  dresser,  a  bed, 
and  a  chair.  The  one  little  window,  crowded  up 
against  a  brick  wall,  let  in  only  dingy  unwhole- 
some light  and  one  felt  that  microbes,  and  even 
live  insects,  lurked  in  large  numbers  In  the  grimy 
corners  and  along  the  unclean  mop  boards. 
From  an  old  fashioned  wardrobe,  Louise  pro- 
duced the  new  coat,  and,  putting  It  on,  preened 
herself  proudly  before  the  slanting  mirror  of  the 
dresser. 


2o6  The  Woman  Who  Waits 

Cherry,  one  of  the  other  girls  who  had  come 
along  with  us,  and  I  expressed  our  admiration. 
"It  is  a  beauty,  Louise!"  we  said,  "and  it  couldn't 
be  more  becoming." 

"How  much  did  you  pay  for  it?"  asked  Cherry. 

"Only  forty  dollars,"  said  Louise.  "I  got  it 
on  55  th  Street.  Down  town  it  would  have  been 
forty-five  or  fifty." 

She  then  pulled  out  a  number  of  large  paste- 
board boxes  from  the  wardrobe  and  drew  from 
them  new  brown  pumps,  with  silk  stockings  to 
match,  a  handsome  new  hat,  and  a  pretty  little 
silk  dress,  all  in  excellent  taste.  Very  proud  and 
happy  she  dressed  up  to  show  us.  I  could  see 
that  she  felt  sorry  for  me  in  my  shabby  black  suit 
and  her  sympathy  enhanced  her  own  pleasure. 
Perhaps  these  clothes  meant  more  to  her  because 
she  had  earned  them,  because  they  representd 
hours  of  hard  work  and  endless  anglings  for  tips. 
All  her  income  was  invested  in  clothes  and  one 
could  see  that  in  her  life  they  were  the  supreme 
value. 

"Where  will  you  wear  all  of  these  things, 
Louise?"  I  asked. 

"At  the  Woodlawn  Cafe  tomorrow  night,"  she 
answered,  beaming.  "I  have  a  date  with  Henry. 
If  you  come,  you  can  see  me  all  dressed  up." 

Cherry  did  not  speak  for  a  long  time,  merely 


The  Lure  of  Dress  207 

watching  with  envious  eyes  while  Louise  naively 
displayed  herself,  but  finally  she  said,  "Before  I 
had  the  children,  I  used  to  have  lots  of  nice 
clothes,  too.  Now  I  spend  all  my  money  on 
them." 

I  could  see  that  Cherry  deeply  regretted  this 
necessity. . 

There  was  the  greatest  rivalry  in  dress  among 
these  girls  and  they  never  lost  an  opportunity  to 
impress  one  another  with  the  superiority  of  an 
individual  garment.  One  night  at  the  Hayden 
Square,  Letty  was  telling  me  about  a  fur  coat  that 
her  husband  had  bought  for  her  the  previous  win- 
ter for  fifty  dollars.  "And  it  is  lined  throughout 
with  satin,  Fannie,"  said  she. 

"It  is  not,  Fannie,"  said  Louise,  who  had  been 
listening  to  the  conversation.  "It  is  just  plain 
lining."  Then  followed  a  discussion  that  might 
have  been  amusing  if  it  had  not  been  so  serious. 
In  conclusion,  Letty  said,  "I'll  wear  it  and  show 
you,  Fannie."     But  she  never  did. 

Another  day  when  they  had  all  been  getting 
new  spring  clothes  which  were  their  one  absorb- 
ing topic  of  conversation,  I  said,  "I'm  not  going 
to  have  any  new  clothes  at  all  this  spring,  girls, 
perhaps  you  won't  speak  to  me." 

There  was  a  most  significant  silence.  Finally 
a  plain  Swedish  girl  said  in  deadly  earnestness. 


2o8  The  IVoman  Who  Waits 

"I  will,  Fannie.  Even  if  you  come  in  rags,  I  will 
speak  to  you." 

After  another  silence,  Letty,  the  Irish  girl, 
said,  "I  will  speak  to  you,  too,  Fannie." 

The  others  said  nothing. 

Another  day  Clara  was  telling  us  about  meet- 
ing down-town  a  girl  with  whom  she  used  to 
chum  before  she  was  married.  "I  haven't  seen 
her  since  she  was  married.  She  had  a  baby  in 
her  arms  and  the  way  she  was  dressed!  She 
looked  awful  shabby,"  said  Clara. 

"Why  Clara,"  said  the  Swedish  girl,  "I  would 
not  have  thought  that  of  you." 

"I  have  felt  mean  about  it  ever  since,"  admit- 
ted Clara,  "but  she  was  so  shabby  that  before  I 
knew  it,  I  just  went  by  without  speaking." 

"You  should  have  seen  the  bunch  that  went  to 
East  Meadow  Decoration  Day!  Say,  they 
was  dirty  and  shabby,  and  their  shoes  was  run 
down  on  the  heels.  Gee!  I  was  ashamed  to  be 
seen  with  them!"  Such  remarks  voice  the  senti- 
ments of  the  girls  themselves. 

And  there  is  every  excuse  for  this  attitude. 
The  advertisements  for  "neat  appearing  girls  as 
waitresses"  mean  well  dressed  girls.  The  wait- 
ress stands  a  better  chance  of  getting  a  job  if 
she  is  well  dressed  when  she  applies  for  it  and  a 
better  chance  of  keeping  it  after  she  gets  it.  Good 
clothes  secure  for  her  recognition  from  her  em- 


The  Lure  of  Dress  209 

ployers  and  among  her  njates.  It  is  not  what 
you  are  but  what  you  wear  that  determines  your 
social  standing  as  a  waitress. 

That  a  girl  should  have  pretty  clothes  that 
she  may  appear  well  in  the  eyes  of  her  "friend" 
is  of  still  greater  importance.  In  the  city  where 
there  are  so  many  more  women  than  men,  the 
competition  is  very  keen.  She  must  be  well 
dressed  when  she  goes  to  the  movie  or  to  the 
cabaret  or  someone  else  will  make  a  stronger 
appeal  to  the  friend  and  she  will  lose  him. 

"You're  a  dandy,  takin'  my  fellow  away  from 
me  last  night,"  is  a  remark  that  I  have  often 
heard  in  the  little  basement  dressing  rooms  and 
the  argument  that  would  follow  would  be  unre- 
served and  bitter. 

That  a  woman  should  spend  all  her  money  for 
clothes  is  most  significant.  The  love  of  dress  is 
unquestionably  one  of  the  most  disorganizing  fac- 
tors in  modern  city  life  because  of  its  individu- 
alistic character.  My  observations  have  led  me 
to  believe  that  not  to  have  the  pretty  clothes  is 
even  more  disorganizing  for  without  them  a  girl 
can  not  hope  to  realize  her  personality. 

As  a  matter  of  fact  clothes  are  of  great  value 
in  the  eyes  of  every  woman.  She  has  certain 
beauty  needs  in  this  respect  that  must  be  satis- 
fied. Even  the  intellectual  woman,  the  woman 
with  an  ideal,  finds  it  difl'icult  to  resist  the  fas- 


2  10  The  Woman  Who  Waits 

cination  of  the  dainty  garment.  She  may  give 
precedence  to  other  values  but  the  lure  of  dress 
must  be  reckoned  with.  In  the  life  of  the  work- 
ing girl  it  is  small  wonder  that  it  is  of  such  pre- 
dominating importance. 

The  shopkeeper  organizes  his  business  in  full 
appreciation  of  this  value.  Every  woman,  as 
she  goes  by  his  wnndow  feels,  although,  perhaps, 
subconsciously,  just  as  did  the  little  waitress,  with 
whom  I  walked  down  State  Street  one  day  when 
she  stopped  in  front  of  a  window  and  said 
naively,  "Oh,  look  at  that  blue  suit!  I  would 
look  cute  in  that!" 

So  each  one  of  us  is  picking  out  a  suit  or  a  hat 
and  saying  to  ourselves,  "Oh,  wouldn't  I  be 
lovely  in  that!" 


CHAPTER  XVIII 

THE   SEX  GAME 

Restaurants  want  women  who  are  young 
and  good  looking;  the  advertisements  announce 
it  and  most  managers  insist  on  it.  "There  ain't 
no  chance  for  an  oM  hen,  they  all  want  chickens 
and  they  yvant  'em  slender,"  is  a  remark  which 
defines  the  situation.  It  is  quite  true  that  some 
restaurant  managers  prefer  women  with  experi- 
ence and  do  not  assess  personal  charm  at  so  high 
a  value,  for  plain  women  last  longer.  The  sea- 
soned waitresses  are  likely  to  be  rather  stout, 
tight  laced,  efficient  persons  with  a  keen  observ- 
ing eye  and  a  highly  professional  manner.  But 
for  the  most  part  the  girl  who  Is  good  looking 
has  her  pick  of  the  jobs,  for  everywhere  the 
waitress  is  playing  a  .game.  It  is  this  which 
makes  the  life,  hard  as  it  is,  fascinating  to  her. 
It  is  a  woman's  game,  the  sex  game. 

The  girls  in  the  waitress  world  discussed  their 
relationship  with  men  with  a  candor  that  I  cannot 
and  shall  not  attempt  to  reproduce.  At  some 
places   the   game   borders   upon  prostitution,    al- 

2?T 


212  The  JVoman  IF  ho  f Fails 

though  not  actual  prostitution  because  the  wait- 
resses earn  the  necessaries  of  life  for  themselves. 
One  day  while  I  was  there,  a  young  girl  came  into 
the  basement  dressing  room  with  her  apron  full 
of  money.  She  sat  down  on  a  bench  and  dis- 
played it.     There  were  several  one  dollar  bills. 

"Them  ain't  tips,"  laughed  another  girl,  "them 
is  dates,  ain't  they,  Nell?" 

"Sure,"  said  Nell. 

"Oh,  Nell!"  teased  the  girl,  "ain't  you  the 
cheap  skate!     Is  that  all  you  get,  a  dollar!" 

"Be  thankful  for  a  dollar  these  hard  times!" 

"Where  you  goin'  to  meet  'em?"  asked  some- 
one. 

Nell  named  the  place. 

"I  wouldn't  go  there,"  said  the  first  girl  who 
had  spoken,  "I  am  afraid  of  the  beds." 

In  the  cafes  where  I  worked  these  relations 
were  entered  upon  with  a  little  more  circumstance 
although  here  also  the  girls  frankly  made  dates 
with  the  patrons.  One  day  a  girl  named  Mari- 
etta danced  up  to  me  in  the  dressing  room  of  a 
cafe  and  offered  me  some  candy  from  an  open 
box. 

"Thanks,  Marietta,"  I  said,  "that  is  good 
candy.     Where  did  you  get  it?" 

"I  went  out  with  a  fellow  last  night,"  an- 
swered Marietta,  "and  he  gave  me  this  and  a 
bunch  of  tulips  and  today  he  is  going  to  buy  me 


The  Sex  Game  213 

that  yellow  sweater  over  in  Carson  Pirie's  win- 
dow.    Say,  he  is  all  right." 

"How  do  you  manage  it,  Marietta?" 

She  told  me  in  unquotable  words  and  added, 
"I  always  keep  two  or  three  fellows  on  the  string 
and  I  get  all  I  can  out  of  them.  I  never  'come 
through'  unless  I  have  to.  Sometimes  they  get 
tired  out  and  quit  but  I  always  get  others.  I 
have  three  now,  this  fellow  I  went  out  with  last 
night  (and  I'm  good  to  him)  and  John,  he's  a 
married  man,  and  Jimmie,  he's  just  a  kid  and 
hasn't  got  much  money.      I  string  them  along." 

Another  girl  told  me  that  she  had  worked  for 
years  in  the  toughest  places  in  the  Loop  and  had 
gone  out  with  men  and  had  drunk  with  them. 
"But,  when  I  was  married,"  she  said,  "I  was  still 
a  virtuous  girl." 

"But  how  do  you  manage  it?"  I  asked  again. 

"It's  easy,"  replied  she,  "always  make  them 
think  that  you  intend  to  go  the  limit  and  then 
when  it  comes  to  the  show  down,  give  'em  the 
merry  ha !  ha !  The  damn  fools  will  stand  for 
it  over  and  over  again.      Men  are  easy  to  string." 

"I  don't  have  nothin'  to  do  with  no  young  fel- 
low," continued  this  same  girl  a  little  later,  "it 
isn't  worth  it.  Now  an  old  fellow  is  worth 
stringin'  along,  you  can  pull  his  leg  and  get  some- 
thin'  out  of  him  but  these  young  fellows  ain't  got 
any  money." 


214  The  Woman  Who  Waits 

The  waitress  is  not  always  promiscuous  in  her 
relations.  She  often  has  but  one  lover.  "George 
is  my  only  fellow,"  she  will  say,  "I  don't  go  with 
nobody  but  him."  And  this  is  a  situation  that 
is  recognized  and  tolerated  by  all  waitresses  but 
it  is  not  prostitution.  Such  relations  are  mainly 
social.  The  girl  earns  her  own  living  but  the 
man  takes  her  to  places  of  amusement  where  she 
has  an  opportunity  to  wear  her  clothes.  He  may 
also  give  her  money  or  articles  of  wearing  ap- 
parel but  these  are  in  the  nature  of  a  gift  rather 
than  in  payment  of  a  service  rendered.  "The 
fellow  that  I'm  going  with  buys  my  clothes,"  a 
girl  will  say.  If  she  has  any  emotion  about  this, 
it  is  pride  rather  than  shame.  She  needs  the 
pretty  clothes  for  her  relation  with  her  lover  de- 
mands that  she  be  beautiful  for  him.  Therefore 
this  material  aid  is  natural.  These  women  live 
in  a  different  world  from  ours. 

"Nobody  helps  me,"  another  girl  will  say,  "I 
scrimp  along  somehow.  Not  that  I  blame  any- 
body else,  I  just  don't  want  to,  that's  all."  And 
the  married  waitress  will  say,  "When  I  was  a 
girl,  I  went  around  with  the  fellows  just  like  all 
the  rest  do,  but  now  it  wouldn't  be  right." 

One  day  a  little  girl  named  Fay  told  me  that 
the  night  before  a  young  man  had  followed  her 
home  and  that  after  she  was  in  the  house  he  came 
to  her  door  and  slipped  under  it  a  card  with  his 


The  Sex  Game  215 

name  and  address  on  one  side  and  the  following 
communication  on  the  other : 

"Dear  little  girl,  I  have  been  watching  you 
for  a  long  time  and  I  want  to  meet  you.  I  would 
like  to  meet  you  properly  but  since  I  can  not,  I 
have  to  take  this  way.  You  are  so  pretty.  I 
am  no  confidence  man  nor  kidnapper  but  just  a 
plain  lad  that  would  like  to  meet  a  sweet  little 
girl." 

"I  was  fool  enough  to  tell  Joe"  (her  husband) , 
remarked  Fay  regretfully,  "and  he  said  if  he 
caught  him  following  me  again,  he'd  beat  him  up 
or  set  the  police  after  him." 

And  here  is  presented  the  problem  of  the  lone- 
some boy  in  the  city.  He  can  get  acquainted 
with  the  waitress  probably  easier  than  with  any 
other  woman;  he  can  talk  to  her  as  soon  as  he 
meets  her  and  call  her  by  her  first  name  as  soon 
as  he  learns  what  it  is.  In  this  way  many  love 
intimacies  are  formed  that  may  or  may  not  lead 
to  marriage. 

One  day  in  a  Greek  restaurant  in  the  Loop, 
the  waitresses  were  all  sitting  at  a  counter  eating 
lunch  when  the  girl  next  to  me  said  as  she  handed 
me  a  card,  "What  do  you  know  about  that!" 

I  looked  at  the  card.  It  was  a  man's  business 
card  with  his  name,  address,  and  telephone  num- 
ber upon  it.  "Why,  what  about  it?"  I  asked, 
puzzled. 


2i6  The  Woman  Who  Waits 

"Gee,  you're  green,  kid  I"  said  she.  "It  means 
that  he  wants  me  to  call  him  up  and  make  a  date 
with  him." 

"Oh,  I  see !"  said  I,  and  then  I  remembered  the 
card  that  had  been  left  on  my  table  at  Foyle's 
Tea  Shop.  "Why,  a  man  left  one  of  my  table 
one  day  but  I  thought  he  had  dropped  it  by  mis- 
take and  I  put  it  into  the  pan  with  the  dirty 
dishes." 

"You'll  learn,  kiddo,"  said  the  girl  briefly. 

"Are  you  going  to  call  him  up?"  I  asked. 

"Not  that  guy,"  she  answered  contemptuously. 
But  her  tone  implied  that  she  might  have  done 
so  had  he  been  another  "guy."  She  tore  the  card 
into  little  bits  and  put  the  bits  into  her  dirty  coffee 
cup.  And  I  thought  to  myself,  "At  least,  it's  a 
gentlemanly  way  of  approaching  the  matter." 

"No  one  ever  says  anything  out  of  the  way  to 
me,"  I  said  to  some  girls  once,  "I  expected  they 
would,  I  had  heard  so  much  about  what  girls 
had  to  put  up  with." 

"Of  course  no  one  would  insult  you,"  one  of 
them  answered.  "Any  one  could  tell  from  the 
looks  of  you  that  you  wouldn't  stand  for  it." 
From  which  I  concluded  that  a  woman  is  pro- 
tected by  her  behavior  even  in  a  world  of  restau- 
rants and  waitresses.  Of  course  there  were  cer- 
tain men  who  paid  every  waitress  silly  compli- 
ments   and    there   were    plenty    of    glances    and 


The  Sex  Game  217 

smiles  that  might  have  been  interpreted  as  a  will- 
ingness upon  the  part  of  the  man  to  receive  a 
signal,  but  nothing  more. 

The  city  man  is  wary.  He  takes  no  chances 
of  making  a  mistake.  He  waits  for  the  signal 
from  the  girl.  "When  a  fellow  says  anything  to 
a  girl,  he  knows  darn  well  who  he  is  sayin'  it  to," 
says  the  waitress.  The  city  man  has  learned  his 
lesson.  He  has  had  to  pay  so  many  times  for 
being  the  pursuer  of  the  innocent  victim  that  he 
goes  slow  and  sure.  Owing  to  present  day  con- 
ditions of  city  life,  the  man  is  the  one  pursued, 
the  woman  the  pursuer.  His  need  is  as  great 
as  ever  and  he  shows  plainly  that  he  wishes  to  be 
pursued  but  he  leaves  the  initiative  to  the  woman. 
She  dresses  to  attract  him,  he  hkes  to  be  attracted 
and  is  willing  to  pay  the  price  to  the  girl  to  whom 
he  surrenders. 

The  waitress  seems  forced  by  the  environment 
of  the  modern  city  to  take  the  initiative  in  court- 
ship and  I  was  not  a  little  surprised  one  evening 
when  a  man  sat  down  at  one  of  my  tables  and 
said,  "If  you  didn't  have  on  that  ring,  I'd  come 
round  some  night  and  take  you  home  in  my  au- 
tomobile." 

"It  is  too  bad  that  I  wear  a  ring,"  I  answered 
jokingly,  "but  there  is  a  pretty  girl  at  the  next 
station  who  hasn't  one." 

"Say,"  said  he,  as  he  laid  down  his  knife  and 


21 8  The  Woman  Who  Waits 

fork,  "I've  been  coming  here  every  night  for  a 
week  and  you  are  the  girl  that  I  want  to  take 
out  in  that  automobile." 

He  came  again  the  next  evening  and  brought 
his  mother.  I  learned  from  her  that  he  was 
from  a  little  town  in  Wisconsin,  and  that  he  had 
just  sold  a  small  country  hotel  and  come  to  the 
city  to  look  around.  This  explained  his  direct 
method  of  attack.  No  doubt  where  he  came 
from  it  was  still  customary  for  the  male  to  take 
the  initiative  in  affairs  of  the  heart.  He  was  not 
a  city  man. 

The  sex  game  in  the  waitress  world  is  a  dirty 
game.  Even  in  the  restaurants  where  the  rela- 
tions between  patrons  and  waitresses  was  not  ac- 
tively sexual,  there  was  the  constant  stimulation 
of  dirty  jokes  and  unclean  conversation.  Whether 
the  place  were  the  cheapest  on  South  Pickering 
Street  or  in  Usher  Lane's  exclusive  tea-room  for 
men,  the  uncleanness  was  always  there. 

One  day  in  the  dressing  room  at  Lane's,  a 
pretty  girl  was  telling  how  much  she  had  made 
that  day  in  tips  and  some  one  said,  "Tell  us  how 
you  do  it,  Daisy." 

"I  do  this  to  them  under  the  table,"  answered 
Daisy,  making  a  suggestive  movement. 

After  Daisy  had  gone  out,  another  girl  spoke 
up  and  said,  "Yes,  she  does,  and  she  gets  the 


The  Sex  Game         ,  219 

money.  When  she  first  came  here  to  work,  she 
had  nothing  and  was  glad  to  pick,  up  an  old  pair 
of  gloves  out  of  the  garbage  can  and  wear  them. 
Now  she  has  everything,  including  a  thousand 
dollars'  worth  of  diamonds  and  a  sealskin  coat. 
She  didn't  earn  them  hashing  at  Lane's." 

Sometimes  I  thought  this  uncleanness  was  the 
fault  of  the  men,  that  they  demanded  this  atmos- 
phere of  the  women,  and  again  I  thought  it  was 
the  fault  of  the  women,  but  finally  I  concluded 
that  it  was  the  fault  of  neither  but  the  outgrowth 
of  a  great  fundamental  human  impulse  common 
to  both,  which  has  become,  by  certain  conditions 
of  our  city  life,  perverted  into  this  unnatural  ex- 
pression. 

The  real  goal  of  the  waitress  is  domesticity. 
She  is  always  hoping  to  marry  and  to  marry  a 
rich  man.  A  girl  at  the  Junior  Alliance  said  to 
me  one  day,  "The  Stock  Exchange  Restaurant  is 
the  place  to  work.  There  is  where  you  meet  the 
rich  men.  A  girl  I  know  married  a  fellow  she 
met  when  she  was  working  there  and  now  she 
has  a  grand  flat  on  the  North  Side  where  she  en- 
tertains her  waitress  friends  at  afternoon  tea." 
And  the  girl's  eyes  were  full  of  envy  as  she  de- 
scribed the  good  fortune  of  her  friend. 

Because  of  the  economic  inefficiency  of  the  men 
in  her  world,   the  waitress   fails  to  realize  her 


220  The  IFoman  Who  Waits 

ideal  of  domesticity  and  so  she  takes  on  a  life  of 
semi-prostitution.  She  is  not,  however,  ex- 
ploited nor  driven  into  it,  but  goes  with  her  eyes 
wide  open. 


CHAPTER  XIX 

THE  PRICE  OF  INDEPENDENCE 

In  most  parts  of  the  United  States  a  woman 
cannot  obtain  a  teaching  position  if  she  is  mar- 
ried. In  many  business  offices  employees  who 
are  married  remove  their  wedding  rings  and  re- 
tain the  title  of  "Miss"  so  that  they  may  keep 
their  positions.  If  they  do  not,  they  may  be 
asked  to  work  for  a  lower  salary.  They  are  all 
girls  and  in  this  respect  they  are  like  the  women 
of  the  stage.  No  such  sacrifice  is  demanded  of 
the  waitress;  married  and  unm.arried,  divorced 
or  merely  expectant,  all  come  in  on  the  same  basis, 
for  the  waitress  has  gained  economic  independ- 
ence. 

This  independence  is  not,  however,  wholly  of 
her  own  choosing  and  it  is  quite  Hkely  that  if  the 
family  had  remained  what  it  formerly  was,  the 
economic  unit,  the  waitress  would  have  been  fairly 
well  content  to  live  the  quiet  and  secluded  life  of 
the  housewife.  No  doubt  this  life  still  has  some 
charms  even  for  the  most  emancipated,  but  under 
present  economic  conditions,  the  waitress  has  not 

221 


222  The  Woman  Who  Waits 

much  choice  and,  there  is  no  question  that  in  spite 
of  its  hardships  and  difficulties,  she  does  enjoy 
her  freedom.  She  is  beginning  to  accommodate 
herself  to  the  ntw  situation  and  gets  many  things 
out  of  the  new  life  that  she  could  not  get  out  of 
marriage  with  the  man  with  whom  she  would  or- 
dinarily be  thrown. 

She  has  better  clothes  for  herself  and  for  her 
children  and  she  can  keep  the  latter  in  school  for 
a  longer  time.  "I  spend  all  I  make  on  my  kid," 
she  will  say,  "if  he  don't  have  good  clothes  when 
he  goes  to  school,  the  teacher  won't  pay  no  atten- 
tion to  him  and  he  won't  learn  nothin'  and  the 
other  kids  will  make  fun  of  him.  I  stay  up 
nights  to  wash  and  iron  for  him." 

The  divorced  or  the  unmarried  waitress  would 
exchange  her  independence  any  time  for  marriage 
with  a  man  who  could  support  her  in  comfort  but 
the  young  girls  in  the  waitress  group  are  placed 
in  a  position  where  they  can  have  but  little  hope 
of  finding  men  to  marry  who  could  and  would 
maintain  high  standards  of  family  life,  largely 
because  of  economic  reasons.  There  are,  on  the 
other  hand,  an  indefinite  number  of  men  in  the 
city  who  have  no  desire  to  marry  and  yet  who 
desire  sex  relations  and  are  willing  to  pay  for 
them.  So  an  adaptation  is  made  which  is  not 
by  any  means  an  ideal  one  from  the  standpoint 
of  the  ultimate  needs  of  society  but  which  is  per- 


The  Price  of  Independence  223 

haps,  in  many  cases,  the  best  solution  that  can 
be  worked  out  under  present  day  conditions. 
Certainly  the  highest  and  strongest  needs,  the 
deep  craving  for  love  and  comradeship  cannot 
be  satisfied  by  sexual  relations  of  a  transient  na- 
ture. 

There  is  nothing  permanent  in  the  life  of  the 
waitress.  Certainly  her  profession  offers  her  no 
security.  It  is  a  blind  alley  job  with  no  future 
and  it  is  a  profession  that  is  hard  to  stay  in  as 
she  grows  older.  She  does  not,  as  she  might, 
save  her  money  with  the  idea  of  becoming  the 
owner  and  manage?-  of  a  restaurant,  largely  be- 
cause such  a  thing  has  not  entered  her  mind. 
And  her  relationships  with  men,  even  when  they 
lead  to  marriage,  offer  no  security. 

Yet,  in  order  to  have  children,  security  is  nec- 
essary for  women  and  the  results  disastrous  when 
they  do  not  have  it.  "I'm  workin'  so  we  can  save 
enough  so  I  can  lay  off  in  a  year  or  two  and  have 
a  kid,"  a  young  wife  in  this  group  will  say,  "you 
don't  know  you're  livin'  till  you  have  a  kid." 

Since  she  cannot  afford  to  have  children  and 
knows  but  little  about  birth  control,  she  resorts 
to  the  common  practice  of  abortion.  A  girl  will 
come  back  to  work  after  a  short  absence  and 
announce  with  a  cynical  smile  upon  her  ghastly 
white  face,  "It  cost  me  thirty-five  dollars  for  the 
job  but,  thank  God,  he  says  I'll  never  have  any 


224  The  Woman  Who  Waits 

more."  Yet  if  motherhood  did  not  interfere 
with  wage  earning  abiHty,  the  waitress  would 
gladly  undertake  its  responsibilities.  But  with 
conditions  such  as  they  are,  she  will  say,  "Mar- 
riage is  for  kids.  If  you  can't  afford  kids,  have 
a  'friend'  and  be  independent." 

It  is  interesting  to  note  that  with  economic  in- 
dependence the  waitress  has  achieved  a  man's  in- 
dependence in  her  relations  with  men;  she  doesn't 
have  to  get  married  and  she  doesn't  have  to  stay 
married  very  long.  Almost  every  waitress  has 
two  or  more  husbands  in  the  course  of  her  life. 
Her  relations  with  the  male  sex  are  free  and  in 
this  freedom  she  has  acquired  the  same  standards 
as  the  men  with  whom  she  associates.  Economic 
freedom  has  brought  with  it  relations  of  all  con- 
ventions. It  has  brought  freedom  of  thought 
and  of  speech;  the  waitress  talks  about  every- 
thing, men,  marriage,  God  and  religion  with  a 
freedom  which  we  expect  to  find  only  in  the  male 
sex.  She  is  a  free  soul,  this  waitress,  and  she  often 
manifests  her  freedom  by  swearing  hke  a  trooper. 
The  city  is  her  frontier;  she  has  found  independ- 
ence and  her  sense  of  freedom  expresses  itself  in 
all  the  vulgarity  and  robustness  of  primitive  life 
everywhere. 

The  women  who  "wait"  live  in  all  parts  of  the 
city,  but  whether  North,  South,  or  West,  they 
come  together  in  their  work  and  in  their  organ- 


The  Price  of  Independence  225 

izations,  which,  though  primarily  employment 
agencies,  are  also  clubs  for  the  promotion  of  the 
social  life  of  the  group.  They  know  each  other 
in  the  restaurant  life  but  not  often  in  their  neigh- 
borhood life.  I  myself  went  out  every  day  from 
my  home,  lived  for  a  few  hours  the  life  of  the 
waitress  and  almost  never  ran  any  risk  of  being 
discovered  by  my  neighbors.  The  city  made  it 
possible  for  me  to  lead  a  double  life  with  im- 
punity. 

The  waitress  does  not  live  under  the  restraint 
of  the  public  eye  and  the  public  does  not  criticise 
her.  This  emancipation  has  not,  however,  been 
won  without  cost;  she  gives  up  the  idea  of  social 
appreciation  which  she  would  get  in  a  neighbor- 
hood group  and  if  she  has  a  social  standing  in 
her  neighborhood  it  is  quite  apart  from  that 
which  she  has  with  her  occupational  group.  For 
example  one  evening  when  I  was  working  in  the 
Taylor  Restaurant,  one  of  the  girls  came  up  to 
me  and  said:  "Let  me  hide  behind  you,  Fannie, 
I'm  so  ashamed!  Do  you  see  that  man  and  his 
wife  at  that  table,  they  are  my  neighbors  and 
they  don't  know  I  work.  We  pay  thirty-seven- 
fifty  for  our  flat  and  we  live  in  a  nice  neighbor- 
hood and  they  think  we  are  somebody.  If  they 
see  that  I  work  in  a  restaurant,  what  will  they 
think!     Oh,  I'm  so  shamed!" 

When  I  went  to  work  in  the  office  downtown, 


226  The  Woman  JVho  Waits 

after  I  had  completed  my  career  as  a  waitress,  I 
found  much  that  was  new  but  nothing  that  was 
starthng,  nothing  that  could  not  be  interpreted 
in  terms  of  experience.  The  little  office  girl,  I 
soon  discovered,  is  bourgeoisie  middle  class,  bound 
by  the  same  conventions  and  actuated  by  the 
same  motives  as  the  housewives  in  the  little  west- 
ern city  where  I  had  lived  for  many  years,  and 
she  will  become,  if  she  is  fortunate,  one  of  those 
women  who  live  in  apartments  and  come  running 
with  a  smile  to  greet  the  husband  when  he  rings 
the  bell  at  evening  time.  She  will  live  the  nar- 
row, shut-in  existence  of  the  home  cooking  woman 
in  utter  ignorance  of  life  in  its  nakedness  and 
crudity. 

The  waitress  is  different;  she  is  ignorant  and 
coarse,  but  genial.  She  is  often  unwashed  and  her 
teeth  are  unfilled  but  she  knows  life  and  she  is  not 
afraid  of  life  which  is  to  her  big,  dramatic,  brutal 
but  vivid,  full  of  color.  She  has^  to  be  sure^  her 
dull  moments  but  she  is  very  busy  and  not  given 
to  brooding.  Even  when  she  is  a  grandmother, 
her  life  is  still  full,  full  to  overflowing  with  ex- 
citement and  the  fierce  joy  of  struggle.  It  is  the 
struggle  that  keeps  her  young.  To  go  out  Into 
the  world  and  grab  from  it  the  right  to  live  in 
spite  of  the  competition  of  youth  is  vastly  more 
interesting  than  to  make  weekly  pilgrimages  to 
the  beauty  parlor  in  the  vain  attempt  to  get  rid 


The  Price  of  Independence  227 

of  the  symbols  of  old  age  that  bear  witness  to  the 
fact  that  you  have  never  lived. 

This  woman  who  is  not  intellectual,  who  is 
moving  out  into  the  new  world  with  no  idea  of 
emancipating  her  sex  is,  after  all,  the  representa- 
tive of  the  great  mass  of  free  women.  Here  we 
have  the  feminist  movement  and  ideals  embodied 
in  a  class.  All  the  costs  to  her  and  to  society 
represent  the  costs  which  we  must  expect  with 
the  great  change  which  is  going  on  in  the  relation 
of  the  sexes. 

The  efforts  that  have  been  made  to  deal  with 
this  problem  from  the  outside  by  Woman's  Clubs 
are  dilletante.  Woman's  Clubs  start  with  pre- 
suppositions that  are  contrary  to  fact,  and  from 
what  I  know  of  women  who  are  seeking  to  help 
the  waitress,  these  suppositions  are  pretty  firmly 
fixed,  so  much  so  that  they  will  probably  refuse 
to  accept  any  realistic  statement.  This  problem 
must  be  solved  from  the  inside  by  the  waitresses 
themselves.  They  have  made  a  beginning  in 
their  organizations  and  the  most  practical  thing 
for  those  on  the  outside  to  do  is  to  get  acquainted 
with  the  actual  conditions  and  face  them 
squarely,  not  try  to  reform  the  women  but  to  en- 
courage them  to  organize  further  and,  when  nec- 
essary, to  support  them  with  legislation. 

The  waitress  is,  in  fact,  already  reforming  her- 
self.    She  is  too  intelligent  not  to  see  that  her 


228  The  Woman  Who  Waits 

irregular  sex  life  is  demanding  a  huge  toll  in 
venereal  diseases  *  and  she  knows  that  abortions 
are  fatal  to  health  and  she  realizes  that  children 
are  happiness  for  women.  Because  she  knows 
why  things  are  wrong,  she  will  be  able  to  make 
them  right.  There  are  many  striking  personali- 
ties in  this  vulgar  "Bohemian  group  (I  have  men- 
tioned some  of  them)  and  they  have  their  own 
ideas  about  life.  They  live  up  to  these  without 
any  moral  support  outside  themselves  and  they 
will  be  the  leaders  of  the  group  in  establishing 
new  standards. 

The  emancipation  of  a  group  always  involves 
a  break-down  of  social  order  on  the  part  of  the 
individual  and  of  society.  It  is,  however,  irra- 
tional to  blame  either  the  individual  or  society, 
irrational  to  talk  about  going  backwards.  Such 
movements  as  this  are  a  part  of  the  great  changes 
that  are  going  on  in  the  city  life.  Just  as  in  the 
Middle  Ages  the  serf  got  his  freedom  with  the 
development  of  the  city,  the  woman  is  getting  her 
freedom  under  the  conditions  which  prevail  in  the 
modern  city.  This  movement  must  be  regarded 
inevitable. 

*  Examination  in   1915  of  2873  women  by  Morals  Court  of 
Chicago : 

Waitresses,  454.  Seamstresses,  54, 

Laundresses,  264.  Prostitutes,  198. 

House  servants,  201.  Manicurists,  12. 

Cooks,  36.  Clerks,  16. 

Chambermaids,  34.  Housewives,  286. 


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